Sex, Murder And A Double Latte

He was upon us. If I reached my hand out I could actually touch those pecs. I summoned up my last bit of willpower and moved my gaze upward to his face. Sensual smiling lips, tanned skin and brown searching eyes looking at…

Marcus.

“Welcome, I am Donato Balardi.”

Their handshake lasted way too long to be innocent.

Well, shit. Here it was, an enchanted evening: I had seen a stranger across a crowded room, he had walked to my side, and I was all set to make him my own—and instead he was coming on to my male hairstylist.

Sometimes I hated San Francisco.

Marcus and Donato (God, even their names sounded good together) were now fully engaged in some pseudo-conversation while they actively undressed each other with their eyes. I excused myself and headed for the bar—not that either of my two gentleman companions noticed. A friendly, relatively cute bartender (probably gay) greeted me.

“What can I get you this evening?”

“What cocktail has the highest alcohol content—?”

“Is this what you drink when you’re not consuming coffee milk shakes?”

I spun around. There, smiling down at me, was the sexy Frappuccino-bashing Neanderthal from Starbucks.

CHAPTER 3

“She looked down at the shards of glass on the kitchen floor. Someone had been in the house.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Are you following me?”

The Neanderthal let out a deep, rich, surprisingly Homo sapiens–sounding laugh. “Well I’m glad to see your ego’s intact. No, I’m a friend of the gallery owner, Gary Sussman. We shared an apartment back in New York.”

“Well how special for you.” I turned my attention back to the bartender. “Vodka martini straight up.” I refocused on my nemesis. “Well, you probably want to go reminisce with your friend. Don’t let me stop you.”

He extended his hand. Say what you like about his taste in coffee, you couldn’t knock the man’s hands.

“I’m Anatoly Darinsky.”

“That’s funny. I don’t remember asking for your name.”

“And yet I gave it.” His hand remained suspended in the air.

What the hell. “Sophie Katz.” I placed my palm against his with a mixture of reluctance and curiosity. Yep, strong handshake. Maybe it was time to upgrade his status from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon.

“Katz…your father’s Jewish?” Anatoly asked as he signaled the bartender to make him a duplicate of my drink.

“He converted for my mom.”

“But Katz…”

“His last name was Christianson and my mother said she would rather choke on a hairball than be Mrs. Christianson so my father got inspired and they both changed their names to Katz.”

Anatoly searched my face, undoubtedly looking for some hint of jest. “That’s…interesting,” he said.

I shrugged; personally, I still hadn’t decided if the reasons behind my parents’ name change were the result of creative thinking or indicative of a shared psychosis.

Anatoly tactfully let the subject drop. “So what do you think of Balardi?”

“He’s magnificent,” I said, stealing a glance at Donato, who was vigorously flirting with Marcus.

“Really? You’re a big fan of spilled paint?”

“Spilled paint? What are you talking about—? Oh, you’re talking about his art.”

Anatoly made a little noise of disgust, which, in turn, perked me right up. It was always good to be able to annoy the people who annoy you, even if you had to embarrass yourself to do it. I examined the paintings on the wall for the first time and felt a little spark of shock bring me out of my haze of sexual disappointment.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “It’s awful.”

I was surrounded by numerous canvases that Donato had apparently thrown a bucket of paint at. I squinted in an attempt to make the pictures more appealing. Who, exactly, decided that this was art? I could throw paint. In fact I was really good at throwing things.

I took a step closer to one of the pieces in an earnest effort to find some redeeming qualities. It was a big green splash mark. I checked the title. Verdi.

“Ah, this one is my favorite.”

I nearly spilled my drink down my dress. I hadn’t realized that Donato was behind me with Marcus, of course, right behind him.

“I love your use of color,” Marcus cooed.

I shot him a withering look, but he wasn’t making eye contact.

Donato, on the other hand, was watching me attentively. He obviously expected me to say something.

I took a long sip of my drink. Think, think, think. “Um, yes, well, it’s very…it’s very…green.”

“Yes, exactly!” Donato grabbed my free hand and placed it against his heart. “You understand. It’s green.”

Now even Marcus looked a little embarrassed. I peeked over at Anatoly who, still standing at the bar, was just within earshot. He was having a ball. Hell, he probably hadn’t been so amused since the time I made a fool of myself at Starbucks. Donato, who still hadn’t let go of my hand, was eagerly waiting for my next artistic insight. But I couldn’t continue this conversation, not without saying something that would get me thrown out. This called for desperate measures.

“Have you met my friend Anatoly?”

For a nanosecond Anatoly’s mouth hung open in a somewhat unbecoming fashion. Then he pulled it together enough to slam the rest of his drink. Oh, this could be fun after all. “Donato, Marcus, this is Anatoly. He recently moved here from New York. Anatoly, this is my friend Marcus, and of course this is Donato, the man we’ve all come to admire.”

“His work,” Anatoly corrected.

“What?” I had become distracted again by Donato’s pecs.

“We’ve come to admire his work, not him, his work. We went over this, remember?”

I did a quick visual survey of the table being used as a bar. It wasn’t quite big enough for me to crawl under. Fortunately Donato seemed oblivious to my humiliation.