Not For Sale by Sandra Marton Page B

far.
    Even these few moments of rational thought had been enough to clarify the situation.
    He knew half a dozen top Realtors. One phone call, and his problem would be solved. Caroline would probably claim she couldn’t afford whatever a Realtor found and he wouldn’t argue, wouldn’t ask what a woman who earned her living selling herself did with all her money.
    Five hundred dollars is a lot of money. I needed it. And, for whatever it’s worth, I’ve never done anything like that before.
    He could hear her saying those words in his head. Maybe it was true. Maybe that night she’d spent with him really had been the first time she’d put a price on sex…
    Lucas scowled. What did it matter? Her finances were her business. He didn’t want to know anything about them, or her. He would simply pay a couple of months rent in advance, hell, he’d pay for the year, and that would be that.
    And if he never managed that confrontation, so what? Someday, he’d look back on this entire thing and laugh. Lucas Vieira, taken in by an innocent girl who’d turned out not to be innocent at all.
    Sure he would. He’d laugh.
    His mouth twisted.
    And if he didn’t laugh, that was okay, too. He would get past this. He was a man, not a boy. He would move on.
    Lucas took his telephone directory from his desk, leafed through it, chose a Realtor he’d dealt with in the past. It was late, but so what?. Being able to call someone at virtually any hour was one of the perks of having power and money.
    The call was brief. He wanted an apartment for a friend. In the fifties. On Madison or Park, or just off those streets. One bedroom. A building with a doorman, of course, as if there were any other kind in this neighborhood. And a security system. Yes. Cameras, video, whatever was current. Price didn’t matter.
    He hung up and felt relieved.
    Why mention it to Caroline until it was a done deal? he decided, and after a few minutes, he stood up and paced the room some more.
    Time dragged by.
    He listened for any sounds from upstairs. Nothing. There was a woman in his home and he might as well have been alone.
    Which was fine.
    He liked it that way.
    Still, Caroline was here. Didn’t she intend to come down and say something? Say anything? What about eating? He was hungry; he hadn’t had a thing except coffee and that was hours ago. She had to be hungry, too.
    Was she waiting for an invitation?
    Maybe so. Maybe she expected him to knock on her door and invite her to join him for dinner.
    He could take her out to dinner, instead.
    There was a quiet little restaurant a couple of blocks away. It was small. Intimate. Candles on the tables. The kind of place where the owner came by and told you what was on the night’s menu. He’d only been there once. With Elin, but Elin hadn’t liked it.
    “I never heard of this place,” she’d said with faint but perceptible disdain. “And I don’t see a person I know.”
    He suspected Caroline wouldn’t say anything remotely like that. If her lover took her to a dimly lit restaurant, her lover’s face would be the only one that interested her.
    Lucas snorted. Who cared what she would say or do? Besides, he thought coldly, the word “lover” didn’t have much meaning in her life. She would say or do whatever a man wanted her to say or do. That was what she’d done the other night, wasn’t it? Starting in the hotel lobby, going right through dinner…
    And ending in his bed.
    “Hell!”
    How many times was he going to go over this nonsense? Enough was enough, he thought, and strode toward the kitchen. Whether she ate or not, what she did or didn’t do, wasn’t his business. Right now, his business was to put food in his empty belly.
    This was his housekeeper’s regular day off. No problem.There were always neatly marked packets of ready-to-heat things in the freezer, eggs and bacon in the refrigerator and, better still, take-out menus in the kitchen desk drawer.
    Lucas reached the kitchen, opened