Сандра Браун - Adam's Fall

The Lord had no mercy.

The following morning when Lilah entered Adams room, he was propped up against the pillows of his bed wearing a green cast to his skin and a death-wish facial expression.

"No basketball this morning?" she asked in a high, piping voice. "No Whitney Houston?" Adam gave her a dangerous look from beneath his shelf of dark brows. She executed an awkward but enthusiastic pirouette and said, "I feel great! It's a positively beautiful morning. Did you have Pete's special omelet cooked in ham drippings?" Adam groaned. "It was delicious. Very cheesy. It fairly oozed when I — "

"Shut up, Lilah," he threatened between his teeth.

"Oh, what's wrong?" She pooched out her lips. "Does Adam have a tummy ache?"

"Get the hell out of here and leave me alone."

Laughing, she said, "I warned you. Don't blame me for your condition. What was it, gin? Vodka? Scotch? Brandy?" He moaned in misery and clutched his stomach. "The brandy, huh? Pretty expensive drinking binge. But then you can afford it, can't you, King Midas?"

"I'm going to murder you."

"You've got to catch me first, Cavanaugh. And you'll never do that by lying on your butt. Come on, get up, let's get started." She took his hand and tried to pull him up. He stayed glued to the pillow. "Come on, all joking aside. It's time to get started."

"I'm not moving from this spot."

Placing her hands on her hips, she gazed down at him in disgust. "Would an aspirin or two help?"

"No. Dying might."

"As far as I know, nobody has ever died of a hangover, though there have been millions of prayers to that effect I'm sure." Her voice was still brimming with good cheer. "You say another one while I get the aspirin … just in case God turns a deaf ear and lets you live."

She went into the bathroom and returned in under a minute carrying three aspirin tablets in one hand and a glass of water in the other. "Here you go."

"I don't want any damn aspirin."

"You'll feel much better during your workout if you take them."

"I'm not doing any exercises this morning either. I feel like crap."

"And whose fault is that?" Her patience had run out. By this time her voice had developed a serrated cutting edge. "Now stop behaving like a baby and take the aspirin."

She opened his hand and dropped the tablets into his palm. He hurled them across the room. They landed on the floor with tiny pings that might just as well have been bombs landing and exploding. Lilah's temper snapped. She tossed the full glass of cold water into his lap.

That got him off the pillow. He bounced up, gasping in surprise, cursing lividly, and staring down incredulously at the puddle of water forming in the V of his thighs. Before he could overcome his astonishment and fury the doorbell pealed through the house.

Pete had gone into the nearest town to do the marketing, so Lilah had to answer the door. Giving Adam one last glare, she left the room and jogged down the stairs. She pulled the wide doors open. It would have been difficult to say which woman was more surprised to see the other.

The caller regained her voice first and asked Lilah, "Who are you?"

"We don't want any."

"Any what?"

"Whatever it is you're peddling, lady."

The brunette drew herself up to her full height. The skin over her face's classic bone structure smoothed out until there wasn't a single line or wrinkle in evidence. Icily she said, "I asked you a question, young woman."

"Now I'm asking. Who are you?"

But Lilah already knew. The pieces of luggage surrounding the woman cost more than Lilah's compact car. Her clothes didn't need visible tags to label them expensive. She had milky white skin, china blue eyes, ebony black hair, and ruby red lips.

"It's freaking Snow White," Lilah muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing. Come on in."

Lilah stood aside and let the woman step into the foyer. She was careful not to let her skirt brush against Lilah's bare legs, a snub that Lilah found amusing.

"Where's Pete?" she asked.

So she'd been here before. "Grocery shopping."

"Where's Adam?"

"Upstairs in his room."

"And for the final time, who are you?"

"Lilah Mason."

"Lucretia von Elsinghauer." Lilah failed to respond. Obviously she was expected to drop to her knees and genuflect. She only stared back at the woman, unimpressed and giving no ground. "What are you doing here, Miss Mason?"

Lilah lowered her eyelid in a slow, suggestive wink. "Wouldn't you just love to know?" She took a perverse pleasure in watching those facial muscles tighten up again. "Relax, Lucretia. I'm Adam's physical therapist."

The woman's chilly blue eyes moved over Lilah, taking in her bare feet, skimpy gym shorts, sleeveless T-shirt — which promoted a rock radio station — and large mismatched earrings. "I want to see Adam. Immediately," she stressed.

"Shall I lead the way?" Lilah asked sweetly.

"I know the way."

"I figured as much." She swept her arm wide to indicate the staircase.

Lucretia shouldered her Louis Vuitton handbag and started up the stairs. Just as she reached the top, Lilah called up to her from below, "Oh, maybe I should warn you. He just had an accident in his bed." She shrugged, bringing her shoulders up level with her earlobes. "Hey, it happens."

"Not good for boss," Pete pronounced philosophically, shaking his head. "She say, 'Crean up this.' Wadder all over boss. I crean. Change bed. She say, 'Now wreave.' I go. Not good for boss."

"Will you stop carrying on?" Lilah plucked a snow pea out of the salad he was making and munched on it. "You don't have to expound on Miss von Elsinghauer's personality flaws to me. She must be a descendant of Hitler's." Pete went into his knee-slapping routine that meant he found something hysterically funny. "It wasn't intended as a joke. I'm dead serious."

Lilah had known the instant she opened the door to Lucretia that her arrival boded ill for all of them. Maybe she was being unfair in her judgment, but she didn't think so. The woman had been under the roof only a few hours and had already caused discord.

After Pete had carried the wet sheets downstairs and Lilah had waited long enough for Adam and Lucretia to have a tender reunion, she knocked on his bedroom door. It was Lucretia who called out, "Come in."

For the first time since Lilah's arrival, Adam's suite resembled a sickroom. The shutters on the windows had been drawn together and closed, blocking out the scenery and all but the most tenacious slits of sunlight. Instead of the rock music that he and Lilah preferred to have blaring, chamber music was weakly wafting from the stereo speakers. The funky poster she had bought for him on her shopping expedition and placed on the wall opposite his bed had been taken down. The atmosphere was funereal.

"I'd better get a Seeing Eye dog if I'm going to find my patient in all this gloom," she quipped as she made her way toward the bed. "What the hell's wrong with you?" Having reached the side of his bed, she saw that Adam was reclining against his pillows with an ice bag sitting on his forehead.

"Adam's not feeling well." Lucretia materialized out of the shadows like a phantom.

"That's to be expected. He got stinking drunk last night. He's got a hangover, which a Bloody Mary and several aspirin would fix right up."

"I don't believe he should be given any medication until we've checked with his physicians."

"Medication! I'm talking about three measly aspirin."

"Lilah, please." Adam groaned. "Lower your voice to a shrill at least."

She leaned over him. "Would you kindly tell me what's going down here? It's time for your session and you're playing a deathbed scene."

He covered his face with his hands and closed his fingers around his head. "Oh, God, my head is coming off."