From Cape Town with Love by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due, Blair Underwood Read Free Book Online Page A

laughed. “Sex drips off you, Mr. Hardwick. And if I can see it, the others can, too. Rachel will see it, and you don’t want that. She’ll bounce you off the job before you get started. My manager is Moses to me.”
    My face wanted to go hot. I lowered and slowed my breathing, putting an end to that.
    â€œYou’re a beautiful man,” she went on. “I hear you’re an actor.”
    â€œMalibu High,
some commercials,” I said. “Nothing like you.” To amuse her, I adjusted my facial muscles into “actor” mode. “‘The future looks bright!’ ” I said; the catchphrase had paid my bills for months.
    â€œI remember,” she said in a voice that made me doubt it. Her lips drew into a thin line. “You’ll want to listen to me very carefully, Mr. Hardwick.”
    â€œI’m listening.”
    â€œThe spark between us is there. I know and you know. But I’m engaged to a wonderful person. Greek, very proud. He gives me freedom, but he’s old-fashioned. He’s very patient with me. And he is in love with me.”
    She didn’t mention that she was in love with him, too. Her fiancé, Alec Dimitrakos, could be excused for an old-fashioned streak—he was twenty years older than Sofia Maitlin. But his two billion dollars went a long way toward erasing wrinkles.
    â€œSo I’ve heard,” I said. “Congratulations.”
    â€œI would never do anything that could hurt or shame him,” she said. “And I couldn’t work with someone who might give that appearance. I’m in the process of building a family, which I intend to carry out with the same tenacity that built my film career.
Punto.”
Period.
    â€œI understand.” I had entered my professional space. Maitlin was testing me again. She wanted to make sure I was thinking about her safety, not her ass. Actually, I approved.
    â€œSo you’ll call me Ms. Maitlin, never Sophia. You are not to be photographed walking beside me. I don’t need you to open doors for me or carry my umbrella in the heat. And if you can stop oozing sex, we might work together again.”
    I smiled. “I’m not concerned about working with you again.”
    She raised an eyebrow, surprised. “No?”
    I had a test of my own. “All I care about is you coming back from Langa safe and whole,” I said. “That means I’ll judge my distance from you depending upon the situation. You’ll agree to follow my directions, and trust that I won’t ask for anything I don’t need for your protection. You have your professional and personal standards, and I have mine. I can’t take responsibility for your safety unless you let me do my job.”
    Either I had just lost the job, or I had just sealed it. I didn’t know which until Sofia Maitlin smiled. “Agreed,” she said.
    I wasn’t finished with her.
    â€œAnd I can’t take the job if you go to Langa this morning as scheduled, Ms. Maitlin,” I went on. “The driver in the van? I can’t allow an unknown second party to drive us. And I’ve never laid eyes on this orphanage, so I can’t—”
    â€œRoman, my head of security, has left a folder for you,” Maitlin said, ready for my objections. “All that paranoid stuff is on the dining-room table. Information on the driver. Photos. Maps. Schematics. I’ll give you time to digest it.”
    â€œI may need more time than you want to give me,” I said.
    â€œHow will we know unless you get started?” she said, winking. “I’d like to get dressed.”
    We made our deal without a handshake. Touching her would have been a bad idea.
    â€œSí, como no,”
I said as I turned to go, an homage to her Cuban roots.
Yes, right.
    â€œIn the next life,
guapo,”
she said, almost to herself.
    With that, my head slightly spinning, I left Maitlin alone with her ocean and