Just Like a Man (34 page)

"But…" Hannah began. And never finished.

"But what?" he asked.

"But, um…" she elucidated.

"But, um, what?" Adrian asked.

"But, um, ah…" she clarified.

This time Adrian only narrowed his eyes.

"I-i-i-it's just that, I, uh… there was a big spider in there when I was in there before," she finally said. "Really big," she elaborated. "Like
this
big," she emphasized, holding the thumb and index finger of her right hand a good two inches apart… and then widening them even more when Adrian seemed unimpressed—and unterrified. And then more. And then bringing her other hand into it, ultimately making the spider large enough to cook Adrian's breakfast for him in the morning. And then raise any children he might have later in life. "It's like… like… like the
king
of spiders," she finally told him, since he still didn't seem to be bothered by its post-atomic-apocalypse size. "I haven't seen one like that since
Damnation Alley.
You should get out now while you still can and call the super to take care of it. That's what I'd do."

Adrian smiled at her benevolently, the way he might smile at an inmate in a mental asylum. "There, there," he told her calmly. "I'll take care of that icky spider for you."

And then, before Hannah could think of a way to stop him, he was pushing past her, making his way down the hall. Hannah spun around to watch him go, feeling helpless and inept and frightened. She watched as Adrian stopped at the office door and settled his hands on his hips, as if he were offended by the sight on the other side. He turned to look at her, his expression one of consternation, then back into the office again. Hannah was on the verge of blurting out an apology and trying to come up with some lame excuse to explain Michael's presence—
My car wouldn't start, Adrian, so I called your archenemy to give me a lift
—when Adrian spoke first.

"There's no spider in here," he said. "Not one as big as you say, anyway. It must have gone out the window."

Well, that certainly brought Hannah up short. Adrian lived on the sixteenth floor of his high-rise. If that spider went out the window, it was nothing but a greasy accountant stain on the street below now.

By the time Hannah made her way to the door, Adrian was inside the office… alone. The screen saver danced on the computer monitor the same way it had when she and Michael had arrived, the chair was tucked neatly into the desk, and nothing appeared to have been touched. Hannah remembered leaving some papers scattered on top of the desk and a drawer open when she heard Adrian come in, but Michael had tidied everything and still managed to get out without Adrian's seeing him. But where? she wondered. Where had he gone? Thankfully, the window was closed, so she was confident he hadn't tossed himself through it.

He must still be in the apartment, though, since she and Adrian had both been in full view of the front door. Unless he knew about another entrance that she didn't know about herself. She supposed she and Adrian had been out of view of the office door and hallway when he'd first come in, so
maybe
Michael had had a chance to sneak out. Maybe.

She found some small comfort in knowing he must still be close by, though. If Adrian decided he had more than a few minutes to kill, and decided to kill them by, oh… Hannah didn't know… by killing
her,
say—or, worse, by having his way with her—Michael would be around to stop him. Unless he'd ducked out for a sandwich or something, she thought further. In which case, if she started screaming for help, he'd be too busy hitting the deli counter to be of much use.

Boy, that would be just like a man. Right when you need him to be a hero, he's going for the Philly cheese steak.

But no, Michael wouldn't leave her alone with Adrian, of that she was certain. She just wished she knew where he was at the moment. If for no other reason than that he was, you know, her ride home.

She watched as Adrian collected the things he needed from his office, and tried not to cringe when he opened and closed the very drawers she had been searching only moments ago. Had she put everything back the way it was? Did he even pay attention to the contents that much? Would he know someone had been going through his things? What would he do if he suspected Hannah of being more than a garden-variety snoop?

And where had Michael gone?

"Well, I think that's everything," Adrian said as he collected a few more CDs from the shelves above his computer. He turned to face Hannah and smiled. "I'm sorry again for bringing you all the way over here like this for nothing."

"Honestly, Adrian, it was no trouble," she said. Well, except for the pesky heart attack she was on the verge of having.

"I'll make it up to you this weekend, after the reception," he told her with a leer.

"And I'm just counting the moments until then," she replied. In fact, she was counting them in much the same way that an inmate on death row counts the moments until they strap him into the chair.

Adrian sighed with something that might have been wist-fulness in another man—another man who wasn't, say, a jerk—and said, "It really is too bad I have to get back to Seymour today. I mean, here we are alone at my place, with no one to bother us. And since I'm sure you told them you'd be taking the rest of the afternoon off, you don't have to be back at work until tomorrow."

He strode across the office and lifted a hand toward Hannah, skimming his fingertips along the line of her jaw, and somehow, she managed to make the shudder that wound through her seem like it was one of anticipation instead of revulsion.

"Maybe I'll call and cancel my final meeting in Seymour," he murmured as he drew nearer. "We could spend the rest of the day here enjoying ourselves…"

And then he was dipping his head to hers, and his mouth was hovering over Hannah's, and she was thinking,
Oh, God, no, please, no, not this, not here, not now, not with Adrian,
and he suddenly seemed so big and so powerful and so menacing and so terrible and so everything she had hoped to never come up against in her life, and when had her life stopped being so normal and secure and uneventful and become such a freak show, and where, oh, where was Michael, and—

And then there was a soft, cheery chirp that sounded like a bird on a wire, and Adrian was pulling away with an exasperated sound, and Hannah was breathing again.

His phone, she realized, relaxing some. The telephone on his desk was ringing. She felt almost as if she were having an out-of-body experience as she watched him walk over to answer it.

"Yes?" he said impatiently. "What? I'm sorry, I can barely understand what you're saying." He covered his other ear with the fist that was holding the CDs. "No, I still can't understand you. What's that ungodly noise? What? My car? Oh, for God's sake. Why on earth do I—What? No, don't touch anything. I'll be right down."

Before Hannah could even ask what was going on, he was returning the phone to its cradle and turning around. "It was the garage attendant," he said. "My car alarm is going off."

"Someone tried to steal your car?" Hannah asked, hoping she sounded shocked and outraged instead of relieved and delighted. "Right out of the garage? Who would do such a thing?"

Adrian eyed her warily. "Who indeed?" he asked.

It was in that moment, when Adrian looked at her as if she should have known better than to even ask such a question, that Hannah became almost certain that Adrian knew everything. Almost. Somehow, she suspected he knew she was only pretending to be interested in him. Suspected he knew she had used his need of a favor to search his home. Suspected he knew she was helping Michael. She wasn't positive, but she suspected. And she suspected, too, that Michael had been right all along, and that Adrian had set up this entire episode knowing she would enlist Michael's help, and then Adrian could catch them both red-handed.

Why
had he done it, though? She didn't have the answer to that.

"You better get down there," she said quietly, amazed at how calm she suddenly felt in light of her discovery. "He might still be there."

Still looking at her in that way that told her he knew what was what, he shook his head. "No, I'm sure he's long gone by now. The alarm—if nothing else—must have frightened him off." And then he strode forward again, stopping in front of Hannah when scarcely a breath of air lay between them. "Come on, Hannah," he said. "I'll walk you to your car."

"No, that's all right," she told him. "I'm parked on the street. You go ahead and take care of things down in the garage."

He didn't move, though, only stood menacingly over her for another moment, gazing down at her as if he weren't quite sure what he wanted to do with her. Then he tucked the CDs he still clutched into his jacket pocket and extended his hand toward her. She pretended not to understand what he meant by the gesture.

"My key?" he asked, crooking a tawny eyebrow at her.

She feigned forgetfulness. "Oh, of course," she said, reaching into her own pocket to retrieve it.

"I'll put it back where it belongs," he said as she handed it to him.

And she knew that place would be different from the one where he'd put it for her to find today.

He dropped the key into his pocket along with the CDs, then extended his hand toward the hallway this time, toward the front door. Hannah preceded him, even though she figured it probably wasn't a good idea to turn her back on Adrian.

And as she turned to watch Adrian close the door behind them and lock it, she wondered once again where Michael was.

Michael wasn't sure his heart would ever be the same again after the episode at Adrian's. He couldn't remember ever being so scared. And he hadn't even given a thought to his own life or well-being. He'd been terrified of something happening to Hannah. At the moment, he wasn't sure what he wanted to do more—kiss her senseless or turn her over his knee and spank her. Although doing both did hold a certain strange—and very erotic—appeal…

He would not say,
I told you so,
he thought as they made the drive back to her house in silence. As much as he wanted to say it, he wouldn't. He would think it—a lot. But he wouldn't say it. Or he might hum it to himself. But he wouldn't say it. He might even do some mental Shakespearean rendition of it. But he wouldn't—

Oh, the hell with it.

"I told you so."

In the passenger seat next to him, Hannah growled menacingly.

"I told you," he continued, "that it was a trap. That Adrian was setting you up."

This time Hannah's response was more of a snarl.

"But would you listen to me?" he asked. Then, because he was pretty sure her ensuing response to that was a word no woman who worked with children should be familiar with, he answered himself,
"Nooooooo."

"Michael," she said through gritted teeth, "do you think we could do this some other time?"

"There's no time like the present," he pointed out smugly. "Never put off tomorrow what you can do today."

"Gee, and just when I didn't think you could get any more annoying," Hannah said, "you resort to cliches. Is there no end to the marvel that is Michael Sawyer?"