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every curve of her hips. Near her thighs, the dress was ornamented with gold hardware that looked almost like garters, except garters should have been tucked away instead of hanging out where everybody could see. Adding insult to injury, the garment had a side slit that traveled all the way from here to kingdom come.
He yearned to bundle her up in his jacket and hide her from the world because he didn't want other people seeing so much of her body, which was a damned ridiculous notion considering her fondness for taking off her clothes. He grabbed her arm and led her toward an alcove off to the side of the lobby where he could hide her from public view and go at her in earnest.
"Is this your idea of how to dress for a business meeting? Is this your idea of what to wear when you want to negotiate a contract? Don't you understand that the only thing you're going to negotiate dressed like that is how much you can charge to crack a whip on some man's bare butt."
"What did you pay the last time?"
Before he could recover from that piece of impudence, she slipped right past him. Whirling around, he saw Ron walk in, and it was obvious from the stunned expression on his face that he was equally taken aback by Phoebe's getup. The men's eyes met, and Dan wondered if he looked as helpless as Ron did. Didn't she realize this was DuPage County? Women didn't dress like this in DuPage County, for chrissake. They went to church and voted Republican, just as their husbands told them.
He stalked toward her with a vague idea of executing a low tackle and then carrying her out over his shoulder when one of Keane's lackeys appeared. Before Dan could stop her, she had set off with him.
He didn't have much choice but to follow. By unspoken agreement, he and Ron quickened their steps until they had pushed the lackey out of the way and positioned themselves on opposite sides of her. At the end of the mirrored hallway, they passed through the doorway into Jason Keane's private dining room.
Dan had known Keane for nearly ten years. They'd partied together a few times, played some golf. Once they'd spent a liquored-up weekend deep-sea fishing in the Grand Caymans with a couple of lingerie models. Keane had always attracted women and, from what Dan had heard, turning forty hadn't made him want to settle down.
The small dining room looked like the library of an English manor house, with Oriental rugs, leather club chairs, and dark wooden paneling. Heavy crown moldings framed an ornate ceiling of plasterwork medallions and vines that flickered with shadows cast by the burning logs in the fireplace. Heavy velvet draperies had been pulled shut at the window, hiding a view of the ninth green beyond. The damask-covered oblong table was set for six with ornate silver and china banded in deep burgundy and gold.
Jason Keane, along with two of his cronies, stood next to the fireplace with heavy crystal tumblers in their hands. The atmosphere was decidedly masculine, and as Dan entered the room with Phoebe dressed in her bondage clothes, the uncomfortable memory of one of Valerie's favorite pornographic books came back to him. He shied away from the ugly feeling that Phoebe was O, and that he was about to offer her up to the brotherhood.
Keane came toward them, hand extended. The multimillionaire developer was a cool customer, but he couldn't quite hide his astonishment at Phoebe's dress. That astonishment quickly changed to something more intimate, and Dan had all he could do not to shove himself in front of Phoebe and tell Jason to set his sights on somebody else's bimbo.
Keane shook Dan's hand. "How's the golf game coming, buddy? Able to sneak in eighteen on any road trips?"
"Afraid not."
"Why don't we play Pebble next month?"
"Sounds good."
Keane greeted Ron, who introduced him to Phoebe. To Dan's disgust, she went into her whole routine: breathy voice, come-hither eyes, centerfold breasts straining to break free of that narrow black band. While she was showing off her goods to Keane and his boys, she didn't once glance in Dan's direction.
Dan watched with a combination of disgust and fury as Keane curled his palm over Phoebe's naked shoulder and drew her toward the fireplace. Keane was all millionaire playboy charm in his custom-made tux and white tucked shirt with its half-carat diamond studs. Of average height and build, he had dark, straight hair and a high forehead. Until that night Dan had considered Jason an okay-looking guy, but now he decided that his nose was too big and his eyes too weasely.
Dan took a drink from a waiter and exchanged greetings with the other men present—Jeff O'Brian, Jason's administrative assistant, and Chet Delahunty, his attorney. As soon as he could get away, he sauntered over toward the fireplace to eavesdrop. Ron obviously had the same idea because he trailed along.
Phoebe had her back to them, and he was almost certain he could make out her bottom-crack under that slinky dress material. She was licking Jason with her eyes and leaning into him as if he were a street corner lamppost. Dan's blood pressure shot into the stratosphere.
"I can call you Jason, can't I?" she cooed. "Especially since we have so many friends in common."
Dan waited for the drool to slide right out of Keane's mouth. "Like who?"
"Half of Manhattan." She rested her hand possessively on his sleeve, her red fingernails standing out like drops of blood drawn from the lash of the whip. "You know the Blackwells and Miles Greig, of course. Isn't Miles a scamp? And then there's Mitzi Wells, you devil."
Jason was obviously feeling the effects of all those gamma rays of adoration that were blasting away at him because his smile blossomed even wider. "You know Mitzi?"
"Of course I do. And you almost broke her heart."
"Not me."
She lowered her voice until it was a sultry whisper, then sucked on her bottom lip in a way that made Dan feel as if the top of his head were blowing off.
"If I confess something to you, will you promise you won't think I'm awful?"
"Cross my heart."
"I asked her to introduce us—this was before the two of you started to date seriously—and she refused. It nearly broke up our friendship, but now that I've met you, I can understand why she was so protective."
Dan could see Jason trying to spot the fastenings on Phoebe's cathouse dress, so he wouldn't waste any time getting her out of it later on. With a murmur of disgust, he tilted back his head and drained his glass. Keane would unfasten that dress over this ol' boy's dead body.
