Just Surrender.... Kathleen O'Reilly

since Edie didn’t believe in one-night stands. Sex was part of the biological symbiosis that wove through the earth. You had to follow the strands of karmic DNA that were laid out in front of you, and picking up strange men in clubs was forging a connection that didn’t exist.

      She noticed his worried frown, and should have eased up on the man. But not yet. “You can tell a killer by the eyes, cold and flat, missing the soul.”

      “By that definition, I’m a serial killer.”

      She smiled. “No, you’re not. I can read your eyes.”

      “Right,” he shot back. Cocky, but clueless. Typical. “What do my eyes say?” he asked, possibly because of her dismissing snort. “You really want to know?”

      “No.”

      “Oh, come on, you know you want to.”

      And once again, he sighed. “Go ahead.”

      She considered fibbing, but Mr. Trench Coat needed something to perk him up. “You’re cold and flat, but you still possess the soul. However, you belong in the Hilton, not the Belvedere.”

      “Flattering.”

      “Yet, true,” she dared him to deny it.

      “Why is Manhattan that way?” he finally asked, his hand pointing to the west. “Shouldn’t we be headed in that direction?”

      “I thought you’d like to see more of the outer boroughs. Most people don’t appreciate the architectural diversity of the city. It’s very picturesque.”

      “I’m not going to pay extra because you got lost.”

      Lost? Edie? Ha. “Flat rate from the airport to the city. It’s the rules.”

      “Now you’re law-abiding?”

      “You’re just fun to joke with, and you look like you needed cheering up.”

      “It’s late. I’m tired. I want to get to the hotel.”

      “Are you always this crabby when you’re tired?”

      “No.”

      “Don’t you want to see Underground New York, the part that tourists always overlook?”

      “No.”

      “At some point, you’ll have to get out and see the sights. You can’t let rejection get you down. She’s not worth it.”

      “She’s not getting me down.”

      “Oh, yeah, sure. Believe what you want. Tonight, when you’re alone in bed staring at that mirror on the ceiling, you’ll see those empty eyes. And before I know it, you’ll be the front page, having jumped naked from the Brooklyn Bridge.”

      “A mirror on the ceiling?” he repeated, picking out the least inflammatory bit of her sentence. It said so much about his sexual psyche.

      “Of course. You should check out the theater.”

      “What theater?”

      “At the hotel. It’s live. The guests can reserve a time slot, and ahem…perform for whoever wants to watch. I heard the seats fill up fast.”

      “Please, no.”

      Edie grinned at him in the mirror. “I’m kidding.”

      “I thought so,” he told her, so obviously a lie.

      “I’m kidding about the reservations. It’s first-come, first-serve.”

      “I don’t believe you,” he answered stiffly, but she noticed him pulling at the knot at his throat.

      Certainly, some of the Belvedere tales were urban legends, and then some were nothing but Page Six gossip, although Edie firmly believed that where there was smoke, there was usually an arsonist with a can of kerosene and a match that didn’t want to light. Frankly, a viewing room sounded fun—as long as the man was sexy, and the woman didn’t have leg hair. Edie always shaved. A woman needed some standards.

      “Suit yourself.”

      “Can you just take me to the hotel?” he asked, impatience finally starting to show. Sadly Edie realized that her joyride, such as it was, was over. She’d have to go back to the apartment. Have to listen to her upstairs neighbor and his girlfriend getting hot and sweaty between the sheets. She’d have to stare at bad TV, and listen to the clock ticking in the dark. All of which she hated with a passion.

      So okay, perhaps when she took the U-turn in the middle of Nostrand Avenue, it was a little reckless. The car rocked over the curb and Edie jerked at the wheel, pulling tight to the left. At last all four tires were firmly back on the ground. Perhaps a little too firmly because that was when she heard the noise.

      For a split second, panic struck her, until she met his gaze in the mirror. Unmoved, and completely in control. Jerk. Quickly, she cleared the anxiety away, and when she spoke, her words sounded almost calming. “What was that?”

      His lips curled at the corners, and the cool, emotionless eyes gleamed like the devil. “A flat.”

      Oh, hell.

      2

      IT WAS THE NIGHT FROM HELL. If it hadn’t been for the raw nerves in the cabbie’s expression, he would have been furious, but he’d seen that panic before. In his line of work, he saw the fear of death everyday, and the instinct to take control was second nature to Dr. Tyler Hart M.D.

      “Does Barnaby have a spare?” he asked patiently, using his clinical voice.

      At his question, she turned to face him, and he could see the shakes receding. Her color was better and the quiver in her eyes was gone. “I don’t know.”

      His mind ran through the steps, making a mental checklist of tools and procedure, and he was happy for the diversion. Changing flats, performing a quadruple bypass—these were the things that he was prepared for. A kiss-off from Cynthia? Not in this lifetime. And Tyler hated being unprepared. “We’ll check the trunk.”

      “Yeah,” she agreed, already falling into blind obedience, which peopled tended to do at the sound of his clinical voice. Was it uncertainty, or a sheeplike personality that suddenly made her so agreeable? Considering the magenta streaks in the short blond hair, he was betting on the uncertainty.

      The rain pounded on the roof, but regrettably his trench coat would have to go. Tyler wasn’t about to sacrifice it to axle grease and New York grime. He took a deep breath, rolled up his sleeves and headed for the great outdoors.

      The great outdoors showered his head, and he bit back a curse. Tyler didn’t believe in using disrespectful words. It indicated a lack of control, as well as a juvenile vocabulary. Neither of which were necessary because he thrived on bad circumstances. He had pulled off aortal coarctations that were nothing short of miraculous. In the big scheme of things, rain was nothing.

      Except a damned inconvenience.

      As he waded toward the trunk, he felt her presence behind him. Tyler smiled with relief when he spotted the jack, the lug wrench and the treadless doughnut. Not great, but it’d do.

      “Thank God,” she whispered in an awed voice. For the first time she didn’t sound quite so cavalier. None too soon, either.

      It was no surprise when she started to unwedge the tire from the trunk. In fact, he had expected it, but he stopped her with a polite tap on the arm. “I can do this.”

      “I should do it,” she insisted, tugging uselessly on the tire. “I flew over that curb like a rabid bat. And it’s my personal dogma that when you do bad, you need to immediately make right, or something worse will come down the pipe.”

      Something worse? What was she expecting? Famine, pestilence?

      Patiently, he met her eyes, watching the rain stream down her face, waiting