Esa clambered up after him, all too eager to not be left lying on the bed with her legs spread wide in front of this divine creature who currently watched her with an impassive stare tinged with dark amusement.
“I apologize. I’d not realized you were entertaining a guest. How are you, Esa?”
“Just dandy, Julia,” Esa answered while she shot a fulminating look at Finn.
He stared first at her, then at Julia, then back at Esa, as though he were convinced he was hallucinating current events.
“You two know each other?” he asked incredulously.
Julia gave a small, elegant shrug. “We know each other from our Junior League days.”
“Still partying until dawn I see,” Esa said scathingly as her eyes swept down the woman’s slender, Town & Country-cover-ready figure. Her voice sounded cool but in truth her heart beat frantically in her ears.
“I attended a charity ball last night to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. Unfortunately my date is passed out cold in our hotel room. Gavin likes his drink a bit too much.”
Esa’s jaw dropped in disbelief when she saw the way Julia gave Finn a smoky look as though Esa wasn’t even in the room.
What the hell was Julia Weatherell—the only woman who held a viable claim to her sister Rachel’s title as the reigning social queen of Chicago—doing in Finn’s condo looking like she owned the place and treating Esa as if she were some small annoyance, like a suspicious-looking spot on the carpet? Of course Esa knew the answer, impossible though it seemed.
Shit. If this didn’t beat all. Julia Weatherell was Finn’s ex-fiancée?
“Finn? May I have a word?” Julia asked in that low, cigarette-rough voice that Esa used to hate…and envy like crazy. It only made her more jealous that Julia possessed that sexy voice without ever touching a cigarette.
Finn met Esa’s eyes briefly before he grimly nodded at the bedroom door and followed Julia out of the room. He pulled the door closed behind them, but not all the way.
And Esa was so wild with curiosity at that moment she wasn’t above listening in through the crack.
“Give me the key,” she heard Finn say clearly in a low, furious tone.
The sound of keys jangling on a keychain and Julia’s husky laughter filtered in through the door. She imagined Julia dropping the key into his waiting palm in the silence that followed, letting her fingertips linger on his skin the process. Esa’s lungs began to burn as she waited in trepidation and forgot to breathe.
“I like that new vase. Did you get it from Serge at Mycroft and Sons? It would look better over on the credenza next to the bowl that we bought together in Paris. Remember that little restaurant next to the shop where we found it? And how after we drank almost two bottles of wine we went back to the hotel room and—”
“What the hell are you doing here?” Finn interrupted, the degree of rage in his tone highly gratifying to Esa.
Or maybe it shouldn’t be gratifying? Would he be so royally pissed off if the gorgeous Julia didn’t still have her hooks in him? Who was Esa kidding? She knew too much about Julia Weatherell to think it was possible for a man to become impervious to her charms.
Besides, hadn’t Finn said they’d only broken up a month ago?
Finn and Julia? What a bizarre pairing. Julia was known for her snobbishness and Finn was one of the most down-to-earth people she’d ever met.
Once Julia had started a rumor about Rachel and Esa—one of many, at least in regards to Rachel—insinuating that neither of them really had attended college at Northwestern. Esa couldn’t have cared less about Julia’s petty rumor-mongering on the social circuit but Rachel had been in the process of acquiring investors to start up Metro Sexy. Her sister had nearly lost two crucial but wavering investors due to Julia’s lies.
“I made a terrible mistake, Finn,” Esa heard Julia say. “You should be glad to know that I’m being punished cruelly for my stupidity. I’m miserable. You have no idea how much I’ve regretted—”
Her voice broke with tears. Esa’s eyes widened in pani
c at the sound. A beautiful, delicate creature like Julia was always a threat…but Julia vulnerable and overcome by emotion?
Don’t even think about it.
“There are nights I would give anything, do anything to be back with you here in our cozy home,” Julia muttered wetly.
Please, laying it on a bit thick aren’t you, Julia? Esa thought with rising disbelief. Had she no shame? Surely Finn wasn’t buying into this!
More soft crying and helpless hicupping ensued, only to be followed by a dreadful silence.
Some kind of masochistic urge made Esa press closer to the door. Oh God, what was going on out there? Why aren’t they speaking? she wondered in rising panic. Surely it wasn’t because they were experiencing a passionate, torrid clinch, was it?