Grafton was charmed. “That might be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.” Not a god but an emperor. Yes. He liked the sound of that very much.
Richie shrugged, then narrowed his eyes and frowned in the direction of the circus. Grafton turned to see what had snagged his attention. He pushed away from the vehicle’s bonnet when he saw Charles jogging toward him, the man’s craggy face wreathed in smiles.
“What is it?” he demanded.
“We think we’ve found ’em.”
Grafton’s heart skipped a happy beat. “Then what the bloody hell are you doing out here? Go back in and make sure you finish them!”
Chapter 31
“I don’t think your SIS friend is coming,” Sonya whispered into the darkness.
She didn’t know how long they’d been hiding in the freezing engine room, but it felt like forever. Her teeth, which she was amazed weren’t already shattered from having been set on edge for so long, threatened to chatter despite the warmth of Angel’s body and jacket. If help didn’t arrive soon, they wouldn’t need to wait for Grafton’s goons to end them. Hypothermia would do the job all by itself.
“You are probably right.” Angel’s scratched-up voice was barely a sliver of sound.
Well, suck it. Not that she’d expected him to placate her with fallacies of their rescue, but still…
“Just FYI, if ever there was a time to disagree with me, this is it,” she told him.
“When did you learn to speak Italian?”
Caught off guard by his conversational about-face, she blinked against the darkness. “What? Why are you asking me this now?”
“Just curious.”
Narrowing her eyes, she wished she could turn and search his face. “Curious? Or trying to distract me because any second now we might take permanent vacations from our oxygen habits?”
“Both.”
She swallowed a snort. “Honest to a fault, aren’t you?”
“When did you learn Italian?”
Stubborn to a fault, too. “Five years ago. For a while Interpol was thinking of moving me to their offices in Rome. Guess you missed that in all your research on me, huh?”
She waited for him to add something, but he never did. Something felt off. Odd. But before she could figure out what it was, he shifted slightly, and she realized his legs had to be falling asleep.
When she moved off him, he whispered in her ear. “Where are you going?”
“Your legs have to be killing you.”
“Straddle me.”
She felt her mouth curl into a grin. Men. Always up for a little sumpin’-sumpin’.
“I’m all for distraction,” she told him, “but that might be a little too distracting.”
“Straddle me,” he said again. It no longer sounded like a request.
Shifting around, she planted her knees against the cold concrete and wound her arms around his neck. When his hot, sweet breath brushed her cheeks, she sighed. Then she tensed at a series of thumps and bangs that sounded overhead and held her breath, listening.
“If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?”
His ploy wasn’t the least bit subtle, but she welcomed it anyway.
