Across from Jake, Forrest was regarding him with an expression that clearly suggested the guy thought he was an idiot. “Why don’t you think Jes is your soul mate?”
Jake opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “It doesn’t seem possible. I’ve literally known her only a few days.”
“So what?” Caleb demanded. “Can you honestly tell me that Jes isn’t the first thing you think about in the morning when you wake up and the last thing on your mind when you go to sleep? Hell, right now, you’re probably thinking about the way her scent fills your nose almost all the time, the way her heartbeat seems to drown out nearly every other sound when she’s near, and the way she tastes when you kiss her.”
Jake stared at Caleb, stunned. He’d never pegged the big omega as the empathetic type, but seriously, the guy had nailed it when it came to describing the thoughts currently rolling through his mind. Jes had parked herself in his headspace, taking up permanent residency there.
“How do you know so much about soul mates?” Jake asked, wondering just how much he didn’t know about the werewolf who was part of his pack. “Did you ever…?”
A short, harsh laugh from the big man cut him off. “No, I’ve never had a whiff of someone that might beThe Onefor me. But I did see it happen once between two werewolves in Dallas. They weren’t supposed to get together, either. They thought they were too different, kind of like you and Jes—well, except they were on opposite sides of the law at the time—but I saw it even when they couldn’t. Just like I see it now and you don’t. Because you don’t want to see it for some stupid frigging reason.”
Jake couldn’t miss the way Caleb’s heart thudded as he spoke. “Why is this so important to you?”
Caleb shrugged, gaze fixed on the label wrapped around his beer bottle. “Because I’m an omega—a loner. Which means I’m always outside the pack looking in. If I had even half a chance to find my soul mate and not have to go this shit alone, I sure as fuck wouldn’t turn my nose up at it like you’re doing.”
Before Jake could defend himself with a reply, Caleb pushed back his chair so hard he almost knocked it over, then strode out of the room, apparently done with the conversation.
Forrest nodded. “What he said.”
Picking up his plate, Forrest put it in the dishwasher, then left, ditching his empty beer bottle in the trash on the way.
Jake sat there for a long time, nursing the rest of his ale and thinking about what Caleb had said. Finally getting to his feet, he tossed his beer bottle along with the one Caleb had left, then slowly climbed the steps. Upstairs, he stopped outside Jes’s bedroom, listening to the sound of her breathing and the beat of her heart through the closed door. He had a sudden urge to walk into her room, wake her up, and ask her what she thought about the idea of being with a man who occasionally had fangs and claws.
But before he could give in to that desire, he continued down the hallway to his room and another long night without sleep.
* * *
Jes sipped her cappuccino, savoring the sweetly flavored drink as she covertly studied the Lanesborough Hotel directly across the street from the outdoor café where she, Harley, and Misty were doing a recon of the place. Originally a hospital in the mid-1800s, the Duke of Westminster purchased the building in the late twentieth century and turned the four-floor Regency-style building into the poshest hotel in London. The outside was gorgeous for sure, but it was the inside with all the marble arched doorways and fancy furniture that was enough to take your breath away.
With Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Eye, Hyde Park, and the Knightsbridge shopping district all within walking distance, it was easy to blend in with the other tourists grabbing a late-afternoon snack. Of course, if someone looked closely, they’d probably realize she and Harley were a little tense. That was because Misty was currently doing a deep dive into the virtual world through the laptop she appeared to be typing on. Thankfully, Misty was wearing sunglasses, so no one could tell her eyes were completely white.
“What do we do if she doesn’t come out of there on her own?” Jes asked softly.
As she spoke, she kept one eye focused on the hotel across the street, sure Metro Police were going to show up any moment because the place had realized someone was hacking their computers. The Lanesborough was a five-star establishment that charged more per night for a room than her monthly rent on her apartment and her car payment combined. While the exterior facade might seem like something out of another century, the hotel’s security system was obviously as modern and high-tech as could be, if the length of time Misty had been snooping around in there was any indication.
What if Misty had gotten trapped in the hotel’s convoluted IT system and was being held captive by an intelligent piece of antivirus software or locked behind a digital firewall?
She’d been in her trancelike state for almost two hours, so it was entirely possible.
“I don’t think there’s anything wecando,” Harley said, her voice giving away how nervous she was even as she bit into her scone. “She almost died back at Darby’s place when she got jerked out of his computer before she was ready. We’ll have to wait and hope she knows what she’s doing in there.”
Jes nodded, sipping her coffee as the bustling London traffic went by. Harley was right. They had no choice but to sit there and wait for Misty to slip out of the hotel’s computer system where she was currently surfing, hoping to learn whether tomorrow’s meeting of select members of the secretive and exclusive Bilderberg Society was still a go. Because based on everything McKay had told Jes and the rest of the team at this morning’s videoconference, that meeting was the reason behind everything Darby had been doing for the past several weeks.
Jake and the other guys were at the house working with the analysts back in DC to figure out where Olivia Phillips and the other kidnapping victims were being held while she, Harley, and Misty had offered to check out the Lanesborough. After looking around the hotel under the guise of tourists, Misty had suggested slipping into their security system to do some snooping. Jes hoped it didn’t turn out to be a big mistake.
Sighing, Jes watched a big red double-decker bus go by, thinking how much Zoe and Chloe would love to visit the city, when she heard a sharp intake of breath. Startled, she looked across the table to see Misty grinning.
“The Bilderberg meeting is still scheduled for tomorrow,” she said.
Reaching into the messenger bag slung over the back of her chair, Misty pulled out a pen and notepad. Flipping it open to a clean sheet of paper, she began scribbling like crazy.
“McKay was right about the attendees,” Misty added as she kept writing. “It’s not a meeting of the entire Bilderberg Society, but there will be twenty of the group’s most powerful and influential members coming to it at noon tomorrow and staying until midnight. All of the members have been provided rooms near the meeting area, but it doesn’t look like any are planning to spend the night. If Darby is going to make his move, it’ll have to be during that twelve-hour window.”
It was during their morning videoconference with McKay that everything had finally started making sense. It was Evie Robinson and her duties as concierge at the Lanesborough Hotel that finally put the STAT analysts on the right path. It turned out that one of Evie’s jobs was overseeing accommodations for the hotel’s more important guests, as well as anything they needed while on the property. When she’d mentioned to McKay that she’d recently been coordinating meeting spaces for a one-day get-together for select members of the Bilderberg Society, their boss at STAT knew it was too much of a coincidence for there not to be a connection.
The Bilderberg Society was made up of influential people from all around the world who got together several times a year to promote various humanitarian efforts. Of course, the conspiracy theorists claimed the society was actually a secret group ruling the world from behind the curtain. Jes had some serious doubts about that, but one thing she did know for sure was that every one of them was rich beyond belief. Seriously, if Darby and his men could get their hands on a few of them and hold them for ransom, he’d have more money than he’d ever be able to spend.
Of course, Darby already had more money than he could spend, but since it appeared his goal was kidnapping some or all of the Bilderberg Society people, he clearly wanted even more in his bank account.
