"Thank you," Lex said into the phone on his home office desk. "I'm sure that there are more, I will send them. Watch your e-mail," he said with a faint smirk on his face. I'll tell her at dinner, he thought to himself. Lex hung up the phone and checked his watch. 12:50… He half-heartedly started to do some work at his desk.
"I should take a picture and give it to your assistant," Rhone said from her position against the doorframe a few moments later.
Lex looked up and smiled, "I didn't hear you come in." He set his work down and started to get up from his position behind the desk. She was dressed casually again, hair pulled back – as usual. He smiled at her and her artist's tube. Why would she carry that if she kept her supplies in that portfolio?
She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then stopped and looked at the phone. Lex followed her gaze, what? A moment later, it beeped.
"Sir, your father is on line one," Mark's voice came over the phone.
Lex furrowed his eyebrows at the phone and then looked to Rhone. "If his own son doesn't want to talk to him, he must be the great guy that everyone says he is," Rhone said with a smile. She knew the state of Lex' relationship with his father and the kind of a man Lionel Luthor was. It would take some attention away from the fact that she had just predicted that the phone would beep.
"It's just that I have better things to do," he said as he put his hands in his pockets.
"Then why did you invite me over?" Rhone asked with a hint of sarcasm.
The phone beeped again before he could reply. He looked at it. He really didn't want to answer it. Not only did he have better things to do; there was an – enchanting woman in his home. And he didn't want to have to make up an excuse as to why he was home at 1 in the afternoon and not at the plant. "I really should take this," he said trying to convey that he would rather be talking to her.
She gestured for him to take the call. He had done her the same courtesy before. And he was a busy person – compared to most people.
"It will only take a moment," Lex hoped. He realized that he would be talking to his father, "You can wait in the library." He gestured that it would be down the hall.
"Alright," she began with a smile, "but if Professor Plum is in there with a candlestick, I'm leaving."
He chuckled, "No candlesticks, but plenty of other things to bludgeon with."
Well, that was the kind of thing she liked to hear. Although she knew today would require her to do no bludgeoning. Maybe more days could be like that… She turned on her heels and walked out towards the library.
Lex watched her walk. It was so commanding, like all of the great leaders his father was always telling him to emulate. The phone beeped again and he looked back to the phone, agitated that he was pulled out of his thoughts. He hit the button. "Dad," was all he said.
"Son," the voice of Lionel Luthor came over the speakerphone. "I tried to reach you at the plant, but your assistant said you went home early," he said.
Lex knew he wanted an explanation. "I wasn't feeling well," Lex said simply.
"And the Invoice Supervisor has this same illness?" Lionel asked facetiously.
Shit. After the incident today and ratting him out to his father, he should fire that assistant. Rhone would never let him do that…. "As far as I know, she has rarely been there. I met her," he paused pretending to think about it, "Last Monday, I believe. She probably spends her time finding ways to waste more taxpayer dollars, driving around to get reimbursed for that $.35 cents a mile." Lex didn't like talking about Rhone this way even if he was just doing it to convince his father. He would beat the shit out of himself if he could, for talking that way about her.
Lionel laughed on the other end of the line. That noise always made Lex flinch, and this time it made him feel a pang of – guilt.
"I think that is a little too creative for someone like that," Lionel was still quite amused.
"Yeah," Lex replied. Normally, he was pleased when his father was completely wrong about something.
"Anyway, Son, the reason I phoned was about your," he hesitated, "trip to Metropolis first week in November."
"I said that I would do it," Lex said.
"Two days after that, an exhibit is coming to the Luthor Wing of the Metropolis Art Museum. A representative from our family should be there," Lionel was waiting for Lex to jump in.
Lex didn't really care about spending time in Metropolis anymore. …Maybe he would be able to catch up with Rhone in those two days. By then he will not have seen her for about a month.
A wave of realization hit him. At the end of September, in approximately five days, she would be gone. There was a heavy feeling in his chest. In an odd way, it hurt. "I guess I can find the time," Lex said coolly.
"Excellent," Lionel said as he terminated the call.
Lex sat there for a moment contemplating his realization. He also contemplated his reaction to it.
Lionel Luthor tapped the button on his phone to get an outside line. He dialed a number he knew well. He shuffled through some papers as he waited for an answer. "I need you to do some digging for me," he said into the phone when there was an answer.
Rhone sat on one of the couches in the library. She didn't mean to hear his conversation, but she did have quite acute hearing. She should have gone farther away. Did he really think that way about her? What the hell was he always pretending to be so interested in her life for then?
His relationship with his father was – strained, to put it nicely. Maybe he didn't want his father thinking anything about them. She could protect herself from a man of Lionel Luthor's means. She had destroyed better, more powerful men, with very minimal effort.
It annoyed her that she couldn't say anything about what she had heard. Lex was quite astute and perhaps he would realize that she had heard the conversation from a measurable distance away. He would catch on to things like that. Clark had told her from personal experience about how Lex could get about such things. Or he would think that she spied on him. Normally that wouldn't bother her, but it would in this instance.
Since when does what he thinks of you matter? It doesn't, he doesn't know the real you anyway. He knows some comic book making office worker, not a comic book making super powered soldier of fortune. She looked at the artist's tube she had placed on the couch beside her.