Page 24 of Light Me Up

She wondered uneasily why she wasn’t more pleased at Noah’s about-face. He’d switched gears so smoothly. But this was good, right? He seemed to be mellowing out. Or at least making a huge effort. Maybe they really eventually could live together in some state that didn’t resemble constant, extreme emergency.

Or else this would turn out to bethe last straw.

Noah got up and held out his hand, eyes flicking toward the bathroom. He was oh, so ready for the bath slave game, with that dangerous sexual heat in his eyes and that magnificent erection. Add hot water and slippery suds to the equation, and it was going to be a long time before they ordered fresh coffee.

Noah wasn’t going to give her the mental space to worry about him.

It was all part of his plan.

Chapter 7

“Hey! Noah! You drove right past it. Wasn’t that the service road that leads to the overflow lot? I thought we’d decidedto park there!”

“Change of plan,” Noah said. “I pickeda better spot.”

“You mean, just now? In real time?” She shot him a disapproving look. “Are you data-diving?”

“I would be if you weren’t talking.”

“You’re always lecturing your people about that! It’s your standard rant. Don’t dive and drive. Remember?”

Noah declined to comment as he negotiated a turn that gave them yet another incredible view of the sun-drenched afternoon landscape. It was really pretty. Too bad he couldn’t really enjoy the rolling hills, vineyards, flowering orchards, andtowering trees.

He was just too wound up. He could hold lucid conversation during a data-dive, but right now he had enough distractions to contend with.

Like Caro herself. She shone like a pearl in that dress. The plunging neckline, the gold and ruby jewelry. She’d left her hair swinging free in luxuriant dark ringlets, the way he liked it best. Smoky eyeliner. Red lipstick on her sensual mouth. So fine. He desperately wanted to taste her lips while running bothhands over her—

A high-pitched horn blatted and he swerved out of the path of a Vespa that was hurtling his way, right smack in the middle of the road. The driver gestured rudely. Noah returned the compliment enthusiastically as the Vespa zipped past.

“Yikes,” Caro said. “Calm down. You know better than to challenge anenraged Vespa.”

“If you say so.”

Caro twisted around to look behind them. “Did Youssef see that you changed the route?”

“Yes, he’s still behind us,” he said. “Coming around the bend.” The white taxi he’d paid to follow them from Rome emerged from the greenery behind them, keeping pace.

“Good,”Caro murmured.

Youssef was part of Noah’s swiftly organized strategy. He’d picked the guy out at a taxi stand in downtown Rome and run a quick online check on his background and immigration status.

Everything lined up. Egyptian. No legal papers. Minimal Italian. They’d discussed the details, and Noah paid generously in advance, promising a fat bonus at the end.

Caro smoothed her silken dress and rested her hands on her thighs, polished red nails gleaming. Nice visual, especially with her sparkling engagement ring and her wedding band in the mix. Having Caro by his side looking so hot almost made up for having to wear a tux. As a rule, he liked to dress sharply, and his costly suits were all bespoke. But today he would have preferred combat gear. Body armor, a ballistic helmet. Firepower slung over one shoulder.

He pushed the thought away. He was committed to this now. The trick was to keep himself busy simultaneously monitoring all the real-time security feeds in the Palazzo Bellocchio. Getting rattled about the risks they were taking was counter-productive.

His group’s tactic so far had always been to hide in plain sight. When they’d torched Midland, they had destroyed all the records. Most of the researchers who could have recognized their faces haddied that day.

Theoretically, none of Obsidian’s surviving victims would be findable with current facial recognition tech.

Theoretically.

The guest list at the Palazzo Bellocchio made him sweat. Big shots in business, politics, entertainment. Always the center of attention. Exactly what he wanted to avoid.

He and Caro had spent all day—or rather, what time they hadn’t spent either having sex or shopping for the dress—on their laptops, poring over all the documentation he could find about the layout of the ancient palace, as well as satellite photos of the grounds. Every room, corridor, closet, staircase, and exit.

Together, they’d come up with multiple worst-case-scenario escapes and ranked the best places to stash the car, just in case they hadto run for it.

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