Page 100 of Under Arthur’s Protection

“Okay.” I nodded. “We go.”

She spun toward me so fast, she almost knocked her coffee mug over. “Really?”

I tried not to smile at her excitement, but probably failed. “But we do it my way. I control the approach, the timing, and the exit.”

“Absolutely.”

Not trusting myself to touch her, I pointed at her messenger bag. “Before we go anywhere, I need you to draft an email with your research, details of both attacks, and everything we suspect about Dr. Hopkins. Schedule it to send in forty-eight hours. Make sure you include the BBC, American networks, blogs in your field, universities, wherever you think it might make a difference. If something happens to us, the evidence gets out.”

The color left her face. “If something happens to us?”

“You do remember the attack outside of the archive, right?”

“Of course.” With those two tiny words, she got up and took her clothes into the bathroom to dress. Fuck. She was hiding herself from me.

Not fuck, Penn. That’s good. That’s what you were trying to do—separate last night from reality.

I took a swig of the disgusting coffee and called Lance.

“You called Merlin before you called me?” No hello, which was what I’d expected.

“It was the middle of the night, Lance, and I needed a safe location. You would have called him to arrange it anyway, so I cut out the middleman.”

“I’m not a fucking middleman, and you should have at least called me second.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I paced from one wall to the other and refrained from looking at the bathroom door.

“Three o’clock, Arthur. He woke me up at three fucking a.m. to inform me Rick Younge showed up and beat the shit out of you.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it the shit.” My left knee protested the lie. Amid all the other injuries, I’d forgotten the scrapes and bruises from the torn pants.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t believe you for a second. How’s Gwen?”

That gave me an excuse to look at the door and listen. The tap was running in the sink, so she wouldn’t hear what I said to Lance. What could I actually say without him flipping out? The kiss and the sex were definitely off limits. Whatever had happened between them, he obviously cared about her—whether that was some hope they might get back together or because he was a stand-up guy underneath his smarmy exterior.

I chose the most conservative version of the truth. “She’s shaken up, but she’s a tough cookie.”

“She’s fucking amazing. I already told you that.”

That she was.

“Did you fuck her?”

“Lance!” I put a fist over my mouth and stared at the door, as though she might have heard his question or my outburst. “This is a protection job.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” The jealous tone from our prior discussions about her was absent. What did that mean? “Now that we’re clear on that, what’s our plan?”

Gwen came out of the bathroom, fully dressed. She was a mess in dirty clothes, her hair rumpled and no makeup, but she was also fucking beautiful. Stop it! Gwen pointed at the phone as she crossed to her laptop.

“It’s Lance,” I said to her.

“Let me talk to her,” he said.

I ignored the request and answered his earlier question. “We’re heading to Cornwall. Gwen suspects everything points to Tintagel, and I think her case holds up.”