Page 74 of Stuart Woods' Golden Hour

As soon as the doors closed, Tessa, Peter, and Hattie stifled laughs.

“Not a word out of any of you,” Mark said.

“Can I just ask a question?” Peter said.

“No.”

“Please?”

Mark grimaced. “If you must.”

“Have you ever had to compete with yourself for a woman?”

“If you were paying attention,shewas coming on tome, not the other way around. So I was not competing with anyone.”

“I wonder what would have happened if you’d given in,” Tessa said. “When the two of you were alone, do you think she’d realized that you and Billy are—”

The elevator dinged, and the doors opened.

“And with that, I will be taking no further questions,” Mark said and marched out.

27

At the same time theevening was winding down at the rooftop bar in Venice, Rick La Rose was heading home to his Paris apartment thinking of calling it an early night, too, when his phone rang.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Scramble,” a female voice said.

“Scramble,” Rick said as he initiated the extra layer of security that would make their call impossible to decipher. “Who is this?”

“Danielle Verde.”

Rick became instantly alert. Not only was Danielle a well-respected senior agent, she’d been part of the Golden Hour mission.

“I’m listening,” he said.

“Someone tried to kidnap me…or kill me. I’m not sure which.”

“When?”

“Forty-five minutes ago.”

“You’re somewhere safe now?”

“For the moment.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Car bomb.”

“Your car?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds more like they were trying to kill you than kidnap?”

“Not the exploding type of bomb. This one released some kind of gas. Lucky for me, I use an app to remotely start my vehicle, so I wasn’t inside as it fogged up.”

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