Page 56 of The Scarab's Game
She relaxed against me and put her hand on top of mine.
“I know I scared you, and I’m more sorry than you can imagine.”
Her alarm continued, but we both ignored it. “Why do you sleep with a gun?”
It had been by my side every night for four months. But that wasn’t a detail she needed to hear. I only had to confess something that would convince her not to delve deeper. “Someone broke into your hotel room.”
She threaded her fingers between mine, a gesture too intimate and so welcoming. “That’s why you kept your door open? In case someone sneaks in?”
“No.” I should have told her about the monitor attached to the door, which would emit a high-pitched wail if anyone attempted to breach it. The noise would disorient an intruder and give me enough time to react. All the Reynolds team members used those in our hotel rooms. We knew how easy standard security was to break. “That was in case you needed me.”
“I see.” Her voice was hushed, a hint of regret lacing the words as she said, “I need to get ready.”
Reluctantly, I loosened my grip on her waist. “I know.”
She sat up slowly, the sheet sliding down to reveal more of her back—the little tank top barely hid anything. The curtains were slightly open, letting the sun streak across her body, dancing along her elegant spine.
My fingers itched to trace each vertebra, but I clenched them into a fist instead.
She stood, turned off her phone, and left.
The absence of her warmth was immediate and jarring. I rolled onto my back, staring at the ornate chandelier, wrestling with memories that wouldn’t let go. The sound of water runningin the bathroom almost had me racing to join her. We’d been close last night—the raw connection we’d nearly made.
With an exasperated sigh, I reached down and smoothed a hand over my hard dick.Stupid shit.I usually had excellent control—critical in my line of work—but instead, it was ready and willing, excitedly awaiting Jenn’s return.
Keep it under control, Em. There’s work to do.
I imagined green felt. Leather bumper. In my mind’s eye, I cupped my hole cards for a preview. Two jacks—I had a six percent chance of a pocket pair on a fifty-two-card deck. But jacks were dangerous. The chance of a higher card showing on the flop was fifty-two percent. I moved through the game, faceless dealer and players calling, raising, folding.
Percentages crammed my brain, multiplying and dividing with each card the dealer revealed.
Five minutes of stats and my hard-on finally calmed down.
I hurried to my room for a tracker and my phone. Making sure not to disrupt any of the contents of her purse, I buried the tracker inside a small zippered compartment, then slid back under the covers.
Maybe I should have settled in my own room or gone to the sitting room and ordered breakfast—or grabbed more clothes—but this bed was warm and smelled like her.
As though summoned by a need to interrupt my thoughts, my phone buzzed, showing Rav’s name. I answered on the first ring, keeping my voice low, though Jenn was still in the shower. “Did I miss anything last night?”
Everyone else on the team had slept in yesterday, knowing it might be a late night; the team at home was five hours earlier than us, so they’d been fresh from the start. I’d been the outlier, up early to escort Jenn to De Rosa’s before spending hours with Jean-Philippe. Try as I might, I hadn’t been able to focus longenough for Jayce to finish searching the storage room at the gallery.
“No scarab, but Jayce took a video, as you requested. Brie’s parsing it to scan stolen artwork databases in case there’s anything else of worth there.”
In this case, items of worth would be anything we could return to its rightful owner or tip the police off about. Not our top priority, but taking anyone with Fenix down a notch was a worthwhile endeavor in my mind.
“What about the truck?” I watched the open door, listening for the water to shut off.
“As we expected, it offloaded everything onto a yacht at Port Hercule,” he continued. “Brie ran a check and confirmed it belongs to Massimo De Rosa.”
“Makes sense. Any idea whether the scarab was in that shipment?”
“Brie found the yacht’s schematic, and Jayce wanted to board it, but there was too much activity. One of the men from the truck stayed onboard, one left on a tender, and the other drove to a parking garage in Nice.”
That meant the scarab could have been on the yacht, in Nice—or wherever the final driver went afterward—or somewhere on the water. “Did you see where the tender went?”
Rav grunted, expressing his disappointment. “He left the port and headed west, but I lost him after he rounded the tip of Le Rocher.”
“That doesn’t help at all.” I paused, listening. The shower turned off. I had to wrap up in case she came out instead of staying in the bathroom to do her makeup. “Although the lesser-known entrance to the Casino Rocher is at the base of the rock, by the tip. If thatiswhere the auction’s taking place, it’s possible he dropped off the scarab.”