prancing around him carrying trays of drinks?
“You looking for someone special?” she asked, her smile growing even more suggestive.
Oy. He slashed a hand through his hair, composing himself. One always learned more playing nice than coming off like a demanding nutcase. And, hell, she was hot. No hardship there.
He smiled back. “Yeah. I thought I saw a friend of mine. Darla St. Giles. You know her by any chance?”
“Oh, sure,” the waitress said, interest perking. He could practically see dollar signs flashing in her baby blues. As one of the rich and reckless, Darla’s male friends were sure to be rich and reckless, too. Emphasis on the rich part. “She’s in here all the time.”
Popular landmark or not, that surprised him. “She is?”
“Uh-huh. To visit her sister. She works here.”
He-llo. A St. Giles? Working at the Diamond Lounge as a topless waitress? Hell’s bells. O1’ Maximillian St. Giles must be spitting disco balls over that one. Except now that Conner thought about it, he had never heard of a second St. Giles sister. There was a brother, Henry, but not…Unless…He tipped his head. “Are you sure they’re sisters?”
“Half sisters, if you know what I mean. Although that’s all hush-hush.” The waitress waggled her eyebrows and leaned against the bar, folding her arms under her bare breasts so they pushed up toward him. Oh. Subtle. “Guess she likes walkin’ on the wild side, or somethin’.”
Or something. Whoa. All Conner’s stress just oozed out of him. A deep, dark St. Giles secret, eh? A secret so hidden that Darla felt safe coming here tonight, even when she hadn’t been to her apartment in two weeks and hadn’t called her own family. Hell, all he had to do was put a watch on the secret sister and sooner or later Darla’d turn up here.
The Tears of the Quetzal was as good as found. And Natalie could bring her in for questioning about Candace’s murder as well.
Damn, he was good.
“How ‘bout you, doll?” the waitress asked, interrupting his thoughts again.
“Me, what?” he asked.
“You like walkin’ on the wild side?”
He smiled at her. “Maybe.” Then took a second look at what the blond waitress was offering up. He was used to women throwing themselves at him, one of the perks of his looks and his famous last name. Normally he was just too damn busy to take advantage. But what the hell, it had been a long time; maybe the Parker case could wait another night. But first…“Darla’s sister, she around?” Just so he’d know who to look for. Tomorrow.
“Sure, she’s coming on right now. That’s her.” The waitress pointed toward the stage.
The stage? He tore his eyes from her and turned. “You mean she’s a—”
He froze, literally, instantly oblivious to everything else around him.
The sister…At first Conner thought it was Darla; they looked so much alike. But then she stepped into the spotlight, and all resemblance vanished. The woman was the most amazingly, lusciously gorgeous thing he’d ever seen in his life. She glided out on the horseshoe-shaped stage to the tune of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Eyes cast demurely down, she was dressed in a frothy, whipped-cream wedding dress, complete with a long poofy veil covering her face and spilling over her shoulders and back clear to the floor like some kind of gossamer waterfall.
Wow.
Normally, the merest glimpse of a wedding dress made him break out in hives and sprint hell-bent-for-leather in the opposite direction. Not this one.
“Her?” he asked the waitress, totally forgetting that just seconds ago he’d been contemplating—
Never mind. What waitress?
Was he actually hyperventilating?
“Yeah. How about we—”
“What’s her name?” he asked, his eyes completely glued to the perfect vision onstage.
The waitress was not pleased. He could tell by the way she huffed and turned her back on him. Working on autopilot, he dug out his ubiquitous roll, peeled off a bill and held it over his shoulder for her. “Her name?”
She gave a harrumph and snatched it. “It’s Vera. Vera LaRue.”
Vera…Wait. Wasn’t that the name Natalie had said belonged to Darla’s roommate? The sister was the roommate?
The churchy organ music morphed into a slow, grinding striptease number. Conner watched, beguiled, as Vera LaRue slowly started to move her body in a sinuous dance. And, damn, could the woman ever move her body. Her eyes were still cast innocently at the floor doing her vestal virgin bit, but there wasn’t a man in the place watching her face.
Conner pushed off the bar and signaled a passing waitress, peeling off another few bills. Without saying a word, he was shown to a table, front and center. He sat down, and a glass of champagne appeared in his hand. Vera paused just above him on the stage. Oh. Man. She was close enough to touch. He was more than tempted to try.
She raised her lashes and looked down at him.
He looked up at her.
Their eyes met.
And sweet holy God. He was struck by lightning.
Or maybe just blinded by the flash of seven carats of chameleon diamond on her finger as she slowly unbuttoned the top of her gown. He almost fell off his chair. That was his seven carats of chameleon diamond! She was wearing the Tears of the Quetzal!
Well, hot damn. If this was Harold’s so-called danger, bring it on.
The top of the white gown slid provocatively off Vera LaRue’s pale, pretty shoulders. Conner watched her slowly tug the sleeves down her arms, inch by tantalizing inch. For several moments his brain ceased to function.
Until he gave himself a firm mental kick. What was wrong with him?
She couldn’t be nearly as innocent as she appeared, clutching the top of that dazzling white gown to her breasts like a blushing virgin. Hell, she must be involved with Darla in the theft of the ring. The evidence was right on her finger!
Logic told him she had to be innocent of involvement in Candace’s murder. Only a complete, brainless idiot would kill someone, or even be remotely connected to a murder, and then flash the evidence in front of a room full of people. Obviously, she couldn’t know of the link between Candace’s murder and the ring she was wearing.
Come to think of it, maybe she didn’t even know the ring was stolen. Now, that would make more sense. It could easily be she was just being used. Or set up.
In which case, he had to give Darla props. Hiding the unique ring in plain sight, as part of her sister’s stage costume, was brilliant.
Too bad he was even more brilliant.
Brilliant and ruthless.
And did he mention intrigued as hell? Who was this Vera LaRue, Darla St. Giles’s gorgeous, secret, illegitimate half sister?
And who’d have ever thought Conner Rothchild would be so captivated by a stripper? His snooty family would have a cow, every last one of them. Especially his dad, who’d always held Uncle Harold in contempt for his questionable taste in multiple women.
But thoughts of family vanished as Vera LaRue stopped in front of him and slanted him another shy glance. She held his gaze with a sexy look as she pulled at the waist of her wedding gown and the whole thing slid down around her trim ankles in a pool of liquid silk.
For a second he couldn’t breathe. Sweet merciful heaven. All that was left was the most erotic, alluring bit of lace he had ever seen grace a woman’s body. Parts of it, anyway. And a veil. Straight out of