Page 91 of King of Temptation

Yanking open the passenger door, he nudged her inside. “You said you wanted to go on a stakeout. Looks like you’re finally getting your wish.”

Chapter 32

Goldie

Be cool, be cool, be cool. You’re just going on a stakeout with your mobster boyfriend, to see if his cousin is betraying the whole family. No big deal.

“Seatbelt,” Brody growled as he slid into the driver’s seat, distracting her from her internal lecture.

Rolling her eyes, she tugged the belt across her shoulder. “It wouldn’t kill you to say please, you know.”

He glanced over just long enough for her to catch the raised brow before he punched the button to start the car. “Maybe I’ll start saying please when you start following directions and not putting yourself in dangerous situations.”

“I wasn’t in any danger!” Despite her protests, her ass clenched as if anticipating the punishment headed her way if Brody decided she had, indeed, put herself in yet another precarious situation.

Guiding the car down the driveway, he snorted, the sound so dismissive she couldn’t help but bristle at it. “Yeah, sneaking around and spying on a man who was possibly discussing his plans to betray his very powerful mafia family wasn’t the least bit dangerous. Did you stop for even one second to think what Rowan might have done if he’d caught you?”

“Rowan’s a douchebag, but he didn’t strike me as particularly dangerous.”

“He’s an O’Rourke, Marigold. Murphy may have tried his best to shield Rowan from the realities of our world, but at the end of the day, he knows how to handle a threat. And he would have absolutely viewed you as a threat if he’d caught you.”

Okay, well, when he put it like that maybe she had acted a tiny bit rashly. “So… how much trouble am I in?”

“More than you want to be.” Digging into his pocket, he pulled his phone free and tossed it to her. “Code is one-two-two-four-eight-three.”

“Is that your birthday or something?” She asked as she tapped in the code to unlock his phone.

“No. My parents’ anniversary.”

Fuck. Her heart gave a sharp twist in her chest and she reached for him, laying her hand over his on the gear shift. “I’m sorry.”

“I need you to send a text to Killian,” he said, completely ignoring her platitudes. Which she could admit stung a bit, but they didn’t have time for her to get mopey about it just then.

Pulling her hand away, she found his text thread with Killian and pulled it up. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell him Rowan is meeting someone at the docks and that you’re with me and we’re going after him.” Silence fell between them, thick and heavy with meaning. “And tell him I think we found our mole.”

She nearly fumbled his phone at that. “You have a mole? Is that what the secret meeting was about?”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.” Shaking her head, she went to work sending his message off to Killian. “I don’t blame you guys for keeping me out of the loop on that one.”

“You don’t?”

The genuine surprise in his voice had her looking up. “Of course not. If you guys have a mole, you have to play your cards super close to the vest. And I’m something of an unknown. Honestly you’d be really fucking stupid to trust me.”

“I guess we’re really fucking stupid, then.”

For a moment, she could only stare at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means I was on my way to bring you into the meeting when Murphy and Rowan showed up. I told Killian you could give us some valuable insight on our situation, and he agreed. So just a heads-up we’ll be picking that writer’s brain of yours, see if you can spot any clues we’re overlooking.”

Love welled inside her, so big and bright and warm it physically hurt. “You’d really trust me with that?”

“Of course.”

“Don’t say ‘of course’ like that was a given, Brody O’Rourke. I can barely get you to clean out a damn drawer for me and here you are—oh, wait, Killian just texted.” Jabbing a finger in his direction with one hand, she used the other to swipe open the message. “We aren’t done talking about this.”