Page 31 of Exposing Adonis

The mention of my ex-fiancee made me want to clench my fists, but I resisted. It wasn’t the time to break that particular news to her yet, because if she was being bratty before, she’d become a terror after hearing the end of our engagement.

She reached a soft hand up to her hair and tried to pull the curls from her face. Her Rolex watch, the one identical to my own and was hopefully still on Lea’s arm, caught on a curl. She had to carefully unwind it loose.

She looked at me with those dark eyes and with a sad smile. “Chocolate is thicker than blood, huh?”

“Always.” I responded, reaching out and patting her head.

“When you’re done with your weird cult-y talk,” Leo said, in a deceptive calm that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Look behind us. Are we leaving a trail of gas?”

I looked over Chloe’s head at the road as it unfurled behind us. There was an intermittent black line of oil, light, and almost invisible.

“Shit,” I said under my breath.

“They must have taken a shot to the gas tank,” Leo said with a shake of his head. “We’re about to run on fumes.”

“How is that possible?” Chloe asked, shaking her head. “Wouldn’t we have blown up?”

“You watch too many movies, Doc.” Leo downshifted. “This car runs on diesel. It’s virtually impossible to blow up unless you light a fire under it long enough to get that kind of chemical reaction. To make a car blow up, you’d need to use a mini-gun with incendiary rounds. In which case, the explosion would have been the least of our problems.”

Chloe leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms. Her nose wrinkled, and she pouted.

She hated to be corrected. That was probably why she went to medical school. Being a professional know-it-all was what she was destined to be.

“How could I possibly know that? I’m from Paris, a city with actual public transportation.” Chloe hated not being the smartest person in the room. It was a problem she had had since she was a child. Leo couldn’t have known that. Or he did and he was egging her on. “What the fuck is amini-gunanyway?Gros con.”

Yup. He had an effect on her. She wasn’t one to use profanity in English or in French, but here she was, letting it loose just for him. Calling him agros con,or an asshole. It was like watching a kid’s show puppet swearing. Cute, but also a bit off-putting.

“Well, how’s that working out for you?” Leo said, the vehicle starting to lose power. “Think we can hop a subway from here?”

“Okay, children,” I chastised. “We’ll probably just make it to that building.”

“Themadrasa?” Leo said, using the Arabic word for school.

The building was two stories high, with a small wall that surrounded it. There was a light peppering of abandoned houses in the surrounding area, which had probably been home to its former students.

By the look of it, school had been out of session for a while.

“We can shelter down, and figure out where to go from there.”

“Radio?” Leo asked.

“Yeah, let’s see if it can reach our friends.”

Chapter 14

Lea

“Doyourememberthatart teacher? Mademoiselle Lupe?” Pippa said in a voice that, I swore, was far too loud for the size of the table. “I’m sure she’s still a mademoiselle, and living with a woman. Have you heard this?”

Alex shook his head, a wineglass to his lips, his smile faintly amused.

Without missing a beat, Pippa looked at the large lump standing behind Alex.

“Do sit down with us, Jason!” She said it with an over-the-top earnestness. “Alex is obviously hosting an open table. Why don’t you come sit be me?”

Geordie’s jaw ticked. Alastair tried to cover his smile, and Jason, the mountain of a man, blushed. It was like the cutest girl in school had asked him to the prom.

“I can’t do that, ma’am.” He had the slightest, sheepish looking grin, before he coughed and regained his composure. “It’s against the rules. I’m on duty right now.”

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