Chapter 1
As Diane Lindquist touched up her lipstick, fluffed her bangs, and dabbed Allure by Chanel under each earlobe, she smelled urine.
Behind her, her brother, Daniel, lay in his hospital bed, the wisps of his thinning blond hair neatly combed, a nasal cannula hissing oxygen through his swollen nose into his wasted lungs. Six months ago a stroke had dragged half of his face toward his square chin, where it still drooped. His cloudy blue eyes, identical in color and shape to Diane’s, wandered restless in their sockets, alert but not aware, searching but unable to find.
In age he was forty-six; in appearance he looked sixty-four.
I’ll always be older than you-hoo.
She turned her head from side to side, using her fingers to rub some excess blush from one cheekbone. One of the nurses had said that he would be here tonight, and she had to look her best. But even at $250 an ounce, her Allure parfum wouldn’t mask the stink coming from her brother’s bed.
She pressed her lips together to even out the color on her lips. “I hope you didn’t do something bad again, Danny.”
"Die-uh," her brother crooned, responding to the sound of her voice. "Die-uh."
Diiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaane. Daniel, eleven years old, standing beside her bed in the dark. Wake up, Diiiiiiiiiii-aaaaaaaaaane.
The stroke that had destroyed a good portion of Daniel Geoffrey Lindquist Jr.'s brain tissue could be called many things, depending on who you asked. Lindquist Industries' executive board felt it was a minor setback that the young Mr. Lindquist would quickly overcome. Country-club buddies called it "bad luck" but were sure that Dan would soon get back "up to par."
Those who were not close personal friends of the Lindquist siblings, or who were not obliged to keep shareholders from panicking, used the standard, socially accepted expressions of sympathy. "Horrible tragedy" topped the list, followed by "undeserved tribulation" and "unbelievably sad turn of events."
No one mentioned the drugs, the booze, the sex, or any of Daniel's other self-destructive amusements. Wealth had its privileges. While he was alive, even old Mr. Lindquist had been philosophical about his son's various addictions. When someone had the bad taste to mention them, his usual comment was something along the lines of. Boys will be boys.
If asked about her brother's stroke, Diane would only offer a sad but courageous smile while she remembered her brother peeing on her bed.
She could still see him there in the dark, opening the front of his pajamas, taking out his ugly snake thing, and aiming the stream at her narrow pelvis. The smell and heal of his urine would wake her up, but it always soaked through her sheets and into her pajamas before she could roll out of the way. Look, you wet the bed again, Diane. I'm going to teh-hell. You wet the be-hed, ha, ha, ha.
Their father had adored Daniel, of course. Had doted on his only son. Had believed every word out of his angelic mouth.
See, Daddy? Danny, standing at the foot of the bed, pointing a righteous finger. She did it again, just like I told you. I can smell it all the way in my room.
Daniel Geoffrey Lindquist Sr., with the stoic calm of a parent resigned to performing a highly unpleasant but necessary task, patting his son on the head. You're a good boy, Danny. Now go back to bed.
Diane knew exactly why her brother had had a stroke. Like an indifferent leech, he had attached himself to family, friends and life and sucked them all dry. That included their parents, three wives, several mistresses, innumerable hookers, and a daughter. All of them were dead or gone now. All except Diane, the only one who really understood Dan, and who had stood by her brother.
Diane endured it all, and in the process made herself indispensable to Danny. She was the only one Dan trusted to supervise his household, pay his bills, clean up his post-high puke, pay off his prostitutes, and, of course, purchase his drugs. And because Daniel had been a lifelong user, no one had been surprised that he had overdosed, as he had done so several times.
Nor had anyone bothered to check out the exact chemical components of the narcotic cocktail he had snorted moments before the first seizure hit.
I'm disappointed, Diane. Daddy, sitting behind his desk, rolling a fat Cuban cigar between his fingers. You were supposed to find a husband at that college, not fill your head with useless nonsense.
Magna cum laude, she'd graduated, with a sterling degree in business. But, Daddy, don't you see, I can help you run the company—
I have Daniel for that.
In Diane Lindquist's opinion, the stroke that had transformed her brother into a six-foot-two drooling carrot was simply long-overdue justice.
It had cost Diane a small fortune to arrange her brother's admission to the Lighthouse Rehabilitation Center. Small, exclusive, and insanely expensive. Lighthouse had an admissions waiting list a mile long—assuming you were first approved to be placed on the waiting list. But appearances had to be maintained, and a very generous donation from Lindquist Industries had finally convinced Dasherz Corporation, which owned the facility, to allow Dan to have the next available bed.
No one would ever say that Diane did not love her brother.
The doctors had been very clear about Daniel's chances. He would never leave the nursing home again, and his condition would continue to deteriorate until such time as would be appropriate to bring him home to die.
Clean, quiet, and classy—that was the Lighthouse. A discreet haven where old-money Chicago families could stick their demented, disabled, and dying relatives, owned by one of the nicest, kindest European gentlemen Diane had ever met. Not at all the sort of place her brother should have been stinking up by peeing in his bed.
Daddy, lighting his cigar, puffing on it until the end glowed bright red. If you're going to have a nervous breakdown, I'll pack you off to that high-priced nuthouse where I put your mother. Stop sniveling and go make me and Danny some lunch.
Diane could have summoned a nurse to deal with the mess. The well-paid staff behaved as if they doted on their patients. But now that her father was dead, it was her duty to see to her brother's needs.
Danny, drinking and reeling as he staggered in from a night of whoring. Just get me the coke, you stupid twat.
Diane took her duty to her brother very seriously.
She capped her lipstick and placed it back in her purse before she removed her jacket and went over to the bed. The odor grew stronger with every step she took toward him.
"Poor Danny. You were such a good boy." She stroked her hand over his skull, tugging playfully at the pathetic cobwebs of his hair. A few small beads of blood appeared on his pink scalp, which she blotted away with her handkerchief. The strands of hair she had pulled out she lucked between his curled fingers, another trick Danny had taught her when they were kids. "How could you do such a baby thing like wet your bed?"
Saliva wet Daniel's lips as his mouth worked and he stared up at her, but nothing came out.
"There's a bathroom right over there, so you don't have any excuse." She pulled back his bed linens and examined the wet, dark yellow stain that had soaked his pajama bottoms and blotched the white sheet under his bony hips. "Oh, look at the mess you made. I'm so disappointed."
At first the nurses had tried to keep Daniel on a catheter, but his physician had ordered them to remove it after it had caused several nasty urinary tract infections. After that, the adult diapers they had put on Daniel had given him a terrible rash. As Diane had told the staff many times, her brother was perfectly capable of getting up and using the toilet.
All he needed was a little reminder.
Diane yanked the urine-stained sheet out from under her brother, grunting a little as she worked it free before she balled up the damp section and shoved it under his nose. "Do you smell that? What is that? Where does it go?"
"Uuuuuh." Daniel cowered and turned his head away. "Eeeeee."
"You're a disgusting, dirty boy." She scrubbed the urine-stained sheet all over his face before stuffing a fistful of it into his mouth to muffle his squeals. "Look at these pants. They're ruined."
Diane stripped off her brother's pajama bottoms and white cotton briefs, tossing them aside. She considered letting him live a little longer—torturing Danny these last few weeks had been surprisingly satisfying—but some of the nosier nurses had been giving her odd looks, and she couldn't afford to fail again. Until Danny died, she wouldn't inherit a dime: their father had left him in control of everything.
Women can't handle important business, Daddy had said. Your brother will look after you when I'm gone.
She re-dressed Danny, and then straightened his bed before she pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the box by the sink. She smiled as she removed the syringe from her purse. The drugs had been expensive, but her supplier assured her that they wouldn't show up if some fool doctor ordered an autopsy. She unbuttoned her blouse as she went to the heart monitor, and pulled up a chair beside her brother's bed. He was crying.
"Stop sniveling," she told him as she tore the monitor lead from his chest, and quickly pressed the patch to her left breast. "You're going to see Daddy." She'd given her brother enough injections over the years to know how to hide the needle mark. "Open wide. Danny. Diane has some nice drugs for you."
Daniel looked at her with his bleary eyes and, responding to the one word she mentioned that promised relief and pleasure, opened his mouth.
Diane pushed his tongue up with her thumb and looked for the right spot. The acrid reek of urine seemed to burn in her nostrils, but in a few minutes it would all be over. Then the syringe slipped out of her hand, and as she reached for it, something seemed to make time slow down and thicken.
"Miss Lindquist."
She couldn't smell her brother's pee anymore, only flowers. Such a pretty scent, but so odd. It made her arms and legs feel so heavy, and her head light.
"Miss Lindquist," repeated the low, courteous voice with a soft European accent repeated. "Release your brother, if you please."
"Yes." Once she had, she felt a wonderfully strong, cool masculine hand rest against her hot neck. "I was hoping to see you."
"Look up." When she did, he said. "That is a security camera we installed last week after your visit, when we found three of your brother's fingers broken. It has recorded everything you have done to him today."
"I don't mind if you watch me," she told him, almost purring with pleasure. "Would you like to help? I'm going to be so rich."
"Did you intend to harm your brother?"
Part of Diane, the sly, careful part, wanted to deny it. Money was a private matter. Daddy had always said. Something to be kept in the family. Like Danny's drugs. Like Danny's whoring. Boys will be boys will be boys will be boys will be boys . . .
The other part of her was lost in the sweet, soft fragrance of the flowers. The perfume grew stronger, and then she couldn't help herself.
"I have to do it," she told him, her voice rising to a childish octave. "Daniel was bad and wet the bed. He has all the money. I can help run the company. I had a business degree. I don't want a husband."
The hand moved to her shoulder and turned her. Diane smiled at him as she fell into his eyes, so beautiful and clean, like cool, pure water.
"What else have you done to your brother?" he asked.
Diane breathed in, and in a dreamy voice she told him everything. She began with the cocaine she had bought and carefully doctored to induce Daniel's stroke. Then she told him why she had done it and everything else.
It took a very long time.
Two men in uniform came into the room, and one of them pulled her hands behind her and put cold metal bracelets on them. She almost laughed at the careful way they handled her, their hands gentle and kind, as if she were the sick one. Couldn't they see that she was fine, now that he was here?
One of the uniformed men told her something about her rights, and asked her if she understood them. She knew she had never had any rights, not as far as Daddy was concerned, but said she did, and they walked with her out of Daniel's room.
Diane frowned when she couldn't smell the flowers anymore. She turned to see him watching her from the doorway.
Such a beautiful man, but he never smiled. "Can't I stay with you?"
His golden hair gleamed as he shook his head.
Diane understood why he didn't want her. She had told so many lies. She knew why. It hurt so much, too.
Women can't handle important business.
"Don't worry," she said to him before they took her away. "Danny will look after me. Daddy said he would."
Liling Harper carried a basket of pale apricot roses into the staff room, where half of the afternoon shift took their dinner break.
"I knew there was something wrong with her," Nancy O'Brien was saying to two other nurses. She shook three packets of sugar into her coffee mug and took a miniquiche out of the microwave. "Nobody that rich comes to visit a brain-dead brother three times a week."
"She give me the creeps, that lady," Sonia Salavera added as she reached into the lounge fridge for a Diet Coke to go with the sandwiches she'd brought from home. "You ever look straight in her eyes?" She mimed a violent shudder.
"You can't tell that someone is a killer by looking at them, Sonia." Martha Hopkins, head nurse of ward seven, poured a dollop of skim milk to lighten the strong black tea she favored. "She is such a beautiful woman, and so devoted to Mr. Lindquist." She sighed. "Now we know why."
Sonia blew some air over her top lip. "Does she still get all the money when he dies?" She looked over at Liling, who had busied herself with replacing the wilting flowers in the table vases. "Hey, Lili, do you know? About Mr. Lindquist's sister? They took her away last night in handcuffs. She want to murder him, right here in the hospital."
Liling had noticed the beautifully groomed woman who had strenuously avoided even the most casual contact with any other person. She had never guessed that Daniel's sister had been the source of his pain, or she would have done something to stop it.
Guilt still pulled at her. "Is Mr. Lindquist going to be all right?"
"He will be now that they've locked up that crazy bitch sister." Nancy glared at Martha. "Don't look at me like that, Marti. She had the heart monitor hooked up to her own chest so that we wouldn't know he coded." To Liling, she said. "That nice Mr. Jaus walked in and caught her in the act. Apparently he got her so rattled she confessed to everything, right in front of the police."
Liling had been rattled by the nice Mr. Jaus enough to believe that much. But as much as she wished she could talk with the other women about the mysterious European and how he had saved Daniel Lindquist, she knew administration would not want the staff openly discussing the incident.
"Joe from security told me that earlier today they caught some reporters who signed in under false names so they could question some of the patients about the Lindquists," she told the nurses. "You should be careful what you say, even when you think no one is listening."
Martha nodded her agreement. "We have to protect the privacy of the patients and their families." As Nancy began to argue, she added, "Remember the terms of your employment contract, honey. They can fire us for gossiping, if they want."
"Can we gossip about Mr. Jaus?" Nancy's eyes twinkled. "He is the best-looking visitor we get on the ward."
"Dios mío," Sonia breathed. "Now, that man, he make my heart race like Jeff Gordon driving it."
Liling smiled at Martha before she left the lounge and pushed her flower cart down the hall to the patients' rooms. Along with tending the facility's grounds and landscaping, she took care of the houseplants in the lobbies and waiting rooms, and restocked vases in every room with fresh flowers twice a week. She was no doctor, and had no formal training in patient therapy, but bringing a little nature in-doors helped lift everyone's spirits. Some of the nurses often joked about how calm and happy the patients were after Liling made her "rounds."
She also had to thin out the beds frequently, or someone would notice just how good she was at gardening.
Liling reached her last stop of the evening, a private room somewhat secluded from the rest of the ward. It had once been a treatment room that administration had specially converted for the use of the current occupant. An armed security guard sat on a folding chair outside the door, but he knew Liling, and only looked up once from the Sports Illustrated he was reading to give her a nod as she went past.
Liling knew how special Luisa Lopez was. A poor girl from the inner city, Luisa had struggled through dozens of operations to repair the horrifying injuries she had received after being attacked, beaten, raped, and nearly burned to death three years ago. Officially she'd come to the Lighthouse to begin an extensive regimen of physical therapy: unofficially she was being carefully protected. No one knew why, but the staff assumed it had something to do with her injuries. Whoever had been responsible for hurting Luisa had wanted her dead.
Liling had never felt strong connections to people, even other Chinese like herself. Yet from the moment they'd met, she'd felt an instant, inexplicable attraction to Luisa. As if the girl shared something with her that had no name.
" 'Bout time you got here," Luisa said as Liling came in with an armful of camellias. "I been waiting on you."
The doctors kept the girl's head shaved to allow the many skin grafts to her scalp to heal, but recently they had given her back eyebrows that arched black and sleek against the seamless grafts of her dark chocolate skin, as well as thick, curly black eyelashes that made her large, hazel eyes look like emerald cabochons with hearts of pure amber.
Liling smiled at her friend, whose hands were newly bandaged from the latest operation to separate and restore function to her burn-fused fingers.
"You have been waiting on me," she said, gently correcting Luisa's English. "Or are you grumpy because your other friend has not arrived?"
"Him." Luisa scowled. "He always… he is always late."
A few weeks after Liling had met Luisa, the girl had made a gruff request for Liling to help her learn to speak better English. To keep her charade intact, Liling had to suggest that an American would be a more suitable tutor, but Luisa had been adamant.
"I like the way you talk," she told Liling. "I doan wanna ax nobody else. Jes tell me when I mess up how I should say it."
Liling arranged the flowers in Luisa's vase before she drew a chair up to the side of the bed and took a copy of Sense and Sensibility from a drawer in the bedside stand. Corneal transplants had restored Luisa's vision, but she still struggled with reading, which she claimed gave her severe headaches. Liling had offered to read to her, and selected Jane Austen for the formal but beautiful English she had used to write her novels.
Liling looked for her bookmark, but it was missing from the pages of the novel. "Can you remember where we left off the last time?"
"Willoughby was supposed to propose to Marianne, but he made her cry," Luisa said. "She ran out the room."
"Out of the room."
Luisa sighed. "She ran out of the room. You sure? That sound like she ran out of Kleenex."
"Sounds like. Yes, I'm sure." Liling opened the novel to chapter fifteen and began to read out loud:
"Is there anything the matter with her?" cried Mrs. Dashwood as she entered. "Is she ill?"
"I hope not," he replied, trying to look cheerful; and with a forced smile presently added: "It is I who may rather expect to be ill—for I am now suffering under a very heavy disappointment!"
"Ha." Luisa made a rude sound. "Marianne is so in love with him that she would never say no. I bet Elinor had that Colonel Brandon chase him off 'cause he's too poor." When Liling started to reply, she shook her head. "Don't say it. I know it's 'because' and I have to say the 'be' part."
Liling suppressed a smile as she continued reading.
An hour passed as the twilight deepened to night, glossed silver by a ghostly full moon. No sound alerted Liling, but she knew the moment he arrived. He waited silently, listening along with Luisa as the charming Dashwood sisters had their hopes destroyed and their hearts broken.
The scent of the camellias grew stronger, as if the flowers she had brought Luisa wished to personally welcome the fair, blue-eyed man standing just inside the doorway.
Liling finished out the chapter and returned the book to the drawer before she greeted Luisa's only other visitor. "Hello, Mr. Jaus."
"Good evening, Miss Harper." The mellow voice, with its eastern European accent, brushed against her ears like velvet.
Valentin Jaus was of average height, not towering over Liling's petite five-foot frame, but the broad shoulders and powerful build under his exquisitely tailored clothes mocked anyone who might label him as small.
Then there was the matter of his spellbinding, unearthly good looks. A Prince Charming mane of golden hair framed features strong and handsome enough to make the heart of any breathing female skip a beat. Rather than making him look sickly and wan, his pale skin bestowed an unearthly quality on him; as flawless as a god, as alien as a star traveler.
Liling tried not to stare openly at him—handsome people, she imagined, disliked being gaped at—but she often wondered if he even had pores, veins, or mortal flaws.
Jaus also projected an unapproachable aura for other reasons. His mouth, hard-lipped and very male, never gave away his emotions. He had beautiful white teeth, judging by what Liling could see when he spoke, but he never smiled. She couldn't tell if he was in pain; she had never had occasion to touch Jaus. She sometimes imagined she could feel it anyway. The man seemed surrounded by invisible walls; had he built them to keep himself in, or the rest of the world out'?
The nurses speculated endlessly about Jaus, but no one seemed to know anything about him. The man never talked about himself at all, and neither did Luisa. It didn't bother Liling, who had enough secrets of her own to appreciate the desire for privacy. That her hands itched whenever she shared the same room with him was only a minor annoyance. She never tried to touch him, not even casually. Jaus was not the sort of man to whom casual things happened.
She saw no indications that he was dangerous in any way, but his eyes, a blue so light they looked like glass, sometimes made her slightly uneasy. She had never seen a man with eyes that might have been carved from some iceberg found at the ends of the earth.
The uneasiness came whenever Valentin Jaus regarded her directly. His eyes changed, not in color, but in intensity. His gaze took on a piercing quality, so unequivocal and merciless that Liling felt as if he could see into her soul.
As he did now.
Jaus went to stand on the other side of the bed and removed his coat. He had some difficulty, as apparently he could use only one of his arms; the other barely moved at all. "How are you feeling, Miss Lopez?"
Luisa shrugged. "They been walking me like… I have been walking three times a day, and I've not yet fallen. Still won't let me go outside, though."
"Your physicians tell me that your skin grafts are still healing," he reminded her as he draped his coat over his good arm. "You cannot be exposed to sunlight just yet."
Luisa muttered something grammatically incorrect under her breath.
Jaus took pains to hide his disability, but Liling wondered what could have been responsible for crippling his arm, and if that were the source of his steely aloofness. She thought he might have been badly burned, as Luisa had been. It would explain why a rich, white European businessman came to visit a poor multiracial girl from the projects.
Jaus caught her staring at him. "Do you suggest that Luisa go outside, Miss Harper?"
"Not if it will harm her," Liling said, trying not to cower under the crystalline gaze. "I could put in a request to administration to allow me to install some spotlighting around the garden paths and flower beds. That way patients like Luisa could enjoy them in the evening, after the sun sets."
"How kind of you." He turned back to Luisa and began discussing the physical therapy she was having to help build up the muscles in her legs, which had become atrophied during her long hospital stay.
Liling sat quietly as the two talked, but she soon forgot to follow their conversation. Watching Jaus even from across the room made her imagination go off in wild directions, taking her to other places that were not so modern or civilized. She could easily picture Jaus as a marauder at the helm of a Norse ship, or issuing orders from the throne of a barbarian king, or even riding at the front of an ancient army of warriors as he led them into battle. Whatever he did, he would be in charge—he had the self-control and watchfulness of a leader.
Something inside Liling responded to that, too, but not with unease or fear. To combat her loneliness, Liling fantasized a great deal, and over time Jaus had come to figure prominently in her most private daydreams.
She gave herself to Jaus in her fantasies, but she made herself different women. An innocent taken from her village by the marauders and claimed by Jaus as his thrall. A slave girl made to dance naked before Jaus at a victory feast. The princess of a defeated land, brought bound and helpless to Jaus's tent…
She fell back onto cool, soft furs. Among them his slaves had scattered talismans of gold and copper, all etched with his profile. Sleeping with himself, was he? Not this night.
Sand shifted under the furs, under her palms, as she tried to brace herself for the weight of him. She couldn't see his face, but she could smell the wine on his breath and the lust on his skin. He did not jump on her, still watching, still looking for weakness. She sensed that although he didn't trust her, he still wanted her, the beautiful, traitorous harlot princess who had come to him begging for mercy. He had accepted her, but only after his men had stripped her veils away from her countenance. She intended to use her prettiest words to plead with him.
His tent was his throne room here in the desert, so she knew the guards would not disturb them. They had already staggered off to their bedrolls, half-drunk on the sweet, heavy wine taken from the last raid on her lands.
He did not fall upon her, but lowered himself to recline at her side. He did not grab; his big hand moved only to cup and caress her shoulder.
"You please me." His voice wrapped around her, indulgent, perhaps to mask his suspicion.
She knew that after three months in the desert with no woman to relieve his need, he was hungry for sex. She saw him breathe in the scent of her skin, the sight of her half-bared breasts. She longed to touch him with her cool hands and offer him her ripe lips.
He pulled back her head, covering her mouth with his. She opened to the press of his tongue, feeling soft and helpless as he gathered her close and feasted. He took her mouth as a starving man ate, greedy and desperate, the sound from his chest like the throb of his heart under her fingers, deep and heavy, and when he lifted his head she gasped his name.
Master.
She gave herself to his hands and mouth, holding nothing back. She wanted him to ravish her, to treat her not as a princess, but as a lowly body slave. She wanted his tongue in her mouth and his hands on her breasts and his thighs pushing hers apart. Deep inside her barren belly, she wanted to feel the thrust of his flesh, the clench of hers around him, the rush of his release.
He was her enemy, and yet he was beautiful to her eyes, a man carved from the whitest, rarest stone, as remote as the snow atop the mountain that cannot be climbed, as chilling as the frost upon the winds, as potent as the seed spilled by the high priest's hand on the altar stone. Only then did she understand that his need was not born of months alone in the desert but of a lifetime alone and wandering. His hunger was her hunger, and—
"Lili?"
"Hmmmmm?"
"You falling asleep over there?" Luisa asked.
Liling opened her eyes to see Luisa and Jaus both looking at her.
Thank God he can't read my mind.
"Just daydreaming again." She made a show of checking her wristwatch. "It's time for me to get home. I'll be back to see you on Friday."
"Don't forget," Luisa said, closing her own eyes. "I got to… I'd like to know what happens next." She drifted off into a relaxed sleep.
Jaus followed her to the door. "Thank you for visiting Luisa, Miss Harper."
He hardly ever spoke to her other than to offer a greeting, so she wasn't sure how to reply. "I enjoy reading to her, Mr. Jaus." Did he want her to stop? "I hope I'm not intruding on your time with her."
"Not at all. There is a leaf in your hair. Hold still." He lifted his hand to her hair, moving his fingers through the straight black strands before resting his hand against her neck.
A garden of unseen camellias surrounded her, paralyzing her by wrapping her in layers of soft white silken petals. Jaus always smelled of camellias, as if he had them hidden under his beautiful suits, just out of sight…
"What is the real reason behind your visits to Luisa, Miss Harper?" he asked.
"You asked me to bring fresh flowers to her room each day," she said truthfully. "Luisa wishes to speak better English. Administration approved the time I spend with her."
"I know these things," Jaus said. "Why do you wish to visit her?"
"Luisa is lonely," she heard herself say. "So am I. She is the only friend I've made since I came to Chicago."
He brought his hand up to her cheek. "Why did you suggest taking Luisa outside to see the gardens? Have you made arrangements to have her removed from the Lighthouse?"
"I've made no arrangements. I don't want to remove her. I want her to see my gardens." She smiled. "It's spring, and all the flowers are beginning to bloom. Luisa loves flowers."
He was silent for a long moment. "What is your first name, girl?"
"Liling."
The pad of his thumb made a gentle circle against her temple. "Forget the questions I have just asked you, Liling. If you are ever in need of help, you will come to me first."
"Forget." Liling nodded. "Friend. Come to you."
Jaus took his hand away. "Here it is." He handed her a stray laurel leaf and opened the door. "Do you need a ride into the city, Miss Harper?"
"I don't…" A waft of air from the hall made her catch her breath. She felt foggy, as if she had somehow drifted off in the middle of their conversation. She had to stop fantasizing so much about this man. "No, sir, thank you. I, ah, drove my car to work."
He bowed to her. "I will say good night, then, Miss Harper."
Surprised, Liling returned the bow. "Good night, Mr. Jaus."