Flash

suites.
    He turned left and stopped in front of the door in the northeast corner. She'd have a view of Lake Union and the Space Needle, he thought. Morning sun. An early riser like himself.
    If the corridor was any indication of the tastes of the occupants on this floor, he was pretty sure he knew what to expect inside Olivia's condo. He envisioned a lot of black leather and chrome furniture and tiny, twisty European lamps.
    The door opened just as he reached toward the bell. Olivia stood in the entrance. She was still clad in the jeans and the oversized denim shirt she'd worn to the Market earlier that afternoon.
    Clearly the prospect of having dinner with him had not inspired her to put on something silky and sexy. Well, what did you expect? he thought. You told her this was going to be a working dinner.
    Her hair was caught up in a loose twist at the back of her head. A few tendrils had come free. Jasper felt his insides tighten. When all was said and done, he was a simple man, he thought. He didn't need to see her in slinky lounging pajamas. The jeans and those little tendrils of hair drifting down around her ears were all he needed to give him an erection.
    She looked at him with somber, shadowed eyes.
    "How bad is this?" he asked.
    "You'd better come into the living room and have a seat. I'll pour you a glass of wine."
    Her grim, subdued tone worried him as nothing else had in a long time.
    "Am I going to need the wine?" he asked.
    "You might not, but I certainly do."
    Maybe he would finally get the whole story now. Jasper waited for her to close the door. He noticed that she set the dead bolt
    He followed her through a small hall tiled with terra-cotta and into an open living and dining room lined with windows. He was oddly relieved to see that he'd been wrong about the black-and-chrome furniture and the trendy little lamps.
    His first thought was that he had walked into a sunbaked Mediterranean villa. Even the metallic gray sky outside could not dim the warm, golden glow inside the condo.
    The rustic-looking, rough-plastered walls were painted with the richly faded yellows, reds, and browns one associated with the stucco and stone of an Italian palazzo. Jasper saw that the terra-cotta flooring extended throughout the suite.
    A rug striped in dark, cloudy hues of green, blue, rust, and ochre framed a sitting area furnished with a low, wooden sofa. There were dull gold cushions on the sofa and the chairs across from it.
    The wide coffee table was covered with colorful mosaic tiles. Large, painted pottery containers filled with leafy foliage were scattered about on the floor. There were more pots filled with flowering plants on the tiled window seat
    The effect was sultry, vibrant and compellingly sensual in a way Jasper could not explain. Interior design had never ranked high on his list of interests. Straightforward comfort and clean functionality were his chief requirements in his personal environments. But Olivia's sunny little villa on the eleventh floor made him see new possibilities.
    He held out the paper bag. "Dinner. It was a lot warmer ten minutes ago when I got to your office."
    "Thanks." She took the bag, but she did not bother to peek inside.
    Maybe she wasn't hungry, Jasper thought. another bad sign.
    "Have a seat." She waved him to a low chair. "I'll get the wine."
    She went around the corner into a kitchen that looked as if it had been ripped out of an old farmhouse in the south of France. Through the opening above the counter that divided the two rooms, Jasper could see a lot of gleaming pans suspended from iron hooks. Not the kitchen of a woman who lived on take-out and microwave, he thought.
    He set his briefcase down on the striped rug beside one of the low chairs. He took off his jacket, slung it over the sofa, and tugged at the knot of his tie.
    "Nice place," he said.
    Olivia caught his eye as she removed the cork from a bottle of chardonnay. "Surprised?"
    "By your condo? A little. But it suits you." He paused. "I was more surprised by the note in the door at Light Fantastic."
    "Something came up." She tossed the cork into the waste basket and poured two glasses. "We need to talk"
    "I thought we were going to do that at your office."
    "I didn't feel like staying there alone until you arrived." She picked up the glasses and walked around the corner into the living area. "It's been what you might call a difficult day."
    Jasper studied the wine in the glass she handed to him. It was almost