LITMIR.BIZ

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weeks.

      “It’s Beth,” she said to her mother.

      “Okay, sweetie. I’ll let you go. We’ll talk another time about picking a wedding venue so you can set a date.”

      She felt her spirits lift. At least her mother was willing to go into cheerful wedding mode.

      “Thanks, Mom,” she said, before switching over to the incoming call.

      “Hi, Beth,” she said. “I’ve found some great Art Deco props for the party. It’s a company that supplies movie sets down in L.A.”

      Beth and her husband, Oliver, would be hosting a party in a couple of weeks at their Palo Alto estate to benefit San Francisco–area children’s hospitals.

      She and Beth had decided that a 1930s theme would be a nice surprise for Beth’s octogenarian grandmother, who lived in a guesthouse on Beth’s estate and who was still spry enough to hit a dance floor.

      Beth laughed. “Wonderful.”

      “I’ve rented some fantastic mohair club chairs, a couple of burled wood wet bars and several frosted glass lighting pieces. And I found these ideal cobalt mirrored serving trays!”

      “It all sounds great, but the party isn’t the reason I was calling.”

      Eva slumped. “Let me guess.”

      “Oh, come on. Don’t hold out on me.”

      She’d filled in Beth on the fact that she and Carter were going to pick out a ring, and that she was making one last attempt to sway her father.

      She pressed a hand to her forehead. “Where do I begin? The bad or the worse?”

      “Oh, come on. It wasn’t that terrible!”

      Beth had an unswerving sunny outlook. “Oh, come on” happened to be one of her favorite sayings.

      “It was bad,” Eva replied ominously. “Let’s see, the bad was that my father went postal. The worse was that Griffin Slater happened to be around to witness it.”

      Beth sucked in a breath. “Oh, no!”

      “Oh, yes.”

      She filled in Beth about the details of the confrontation in her father’s study, and Beth made sympathetic noises at regular intervals.

      “I hope I never see Griffin Slater again,” she declared when she finished the sorry story, though she knew it was a vain hope.

      “Umm…”

      Beth’s tone made her suddenly wary. “Tell me you didn’t invite him to your party?”

      “Eva, I had to! He and Oliver have known each other for years.”

      She groaned. She and Beth had picked out the invitation together, but Beth had submitted her final guest list directly to the printer.

      “Just my luck,” she grumbled.

      “He may not come,” Beth pointed out.

      “If he knows I’m planning it, he probably won’t,” she responded, the thought brightening her mood.

      Griffin never showed at her parties. It was one of the reasons she’d concluded he was dismissive of her business.

      “Have you thought about your costume?” Beth asked, obviously trying to change the subject.

      “At the moment,” she said dryly, “I’m thinking that appearing with Carter as Nick & Nora would be appropriate.”

      Beth laughed.

      She’d been only half joking, Eva thought to herself. Appearing as the Dashiell Hammett sleuths—a retired detective and his wealthy socialite wife whose family believes she married beneath herself—would definitely ring true at the moment.

      “Remind me to dig out my Nick & Nora cosmetics case for you then,” Beth said. “Whoever thought to create a women’s brand out of those characters had a stroke of genius.”

      “Thanks,” she deadpanned.

      After she ended her call with Beth, she sat back against her couch and closed her eyes.

      Despite herself, she kept replaying the awful moment when her father had come out and said he’d entertained hopes of her marrying Griffin.

      Griffin as her husband?

      As if.

      Yes, she felt the energy whenever Griffin entered a room, but only because he knew how to press her buttons, damn it.

      “I’ve got some bombshell news.”

      Griffin’s hand tightened on the phone.

      It had been over two weeks since his call with Ron Winslow, but now the sound of the private investigator’s voice at the other end of the line brought his mind back to Eva.

      As if he hadn’t been thinking about her enough already.

      “What have you got?” he said evenly, swiveling his mesh chair away from his desk and toward the panel of floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

      His office at Tremont REH sat high above the bustle of San Francisco’s Union Square.

      Ron cleared his throat. “Newell is an operator all right—”

      “I figured.”

      “—but not in the way you’re thinking.”

      He tensed. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean Romeo is two-timing his Juliet.”

      Griffin cursed under his breath. He hadn’t been expecting this kind of dirt to be sticking to Newell.

      “You’ve always delivered the goods, Ron, but I’ve got to ask—are you sure?”

      This was, after all, Marcus Tremont’s daughter they were talking about. She moved in rarified social circles. If Eva’s scummy would-be fiancé was cheating on her, they were dealing with news that would eventually make the rounds of San Francisco society.

      “I’m messengering the evidence to you as we speak,” Ron responded. “There’s a video, shots taken with the telephoto lens and even—” Ron chuckled without humor “—an audio recording. What you choose to do with this hot potato is your business.”

      Griffin knew without asking what Ron meant. It would be up to him to decide what evidence to share with whom.

      He didn’t relish the thought of disclosing Newell’s philandering to Eva. Especially since all he could think about was rearranging Carter’s elegant face.

      “How did you discover Newell is seeing another woman?” he asked.

      “Fell into my lap,” Ron replied. “I was tailing him, wondering whether I’d come up with anything interesting. A few days in, I followed him to a restaurant in Berkeley. Turned out he was there to rendezvous with a Jessica Alba look-alike.”

      The bastard.

      Griffin wondered whether Newell had a type. Eva didn’t fit as a Jessica Alba look-alike. She was more a Rose McGowan or Katharine McPhee.

      And maybe, tellingly, he realized, that was the point. Eva wasn’t Carter’s type. The guy was only attracted to her money.

      “While Newell and the woman sat at the restaurant bar,” Ron went on, “I greased the palm of one of the waiters to find out which table they’d reserved. I was able to slip a microphone onto the wall next to their seats before they sat down, and I laid claim to the next table.”

      The investigator added with a snort, “You won’t believe the crap I’ve got on tape.”

      Oh, he could believe it all right, Griffin thought cynically, picturing smooth-as-cream Carter in his mind. The problem

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