urge to say she wasn’t available was strong, but it wasn’t Mike’s problem she was frustrated and annoyed with Jack. Mike dealt with threatening visitors, not ones who simply didn’t know how to use a damn phone at six-thirty in the morning. “Please send him up.”
She glanced down at her oh-so-attractive flannel button-down pajamas and hightailed it to the bedroom. A pair of jeans and a cashmere sweater lay on a small chair where she’d left them the night before, and she quickly changed into them. A glance in the mirror had her cringing—seriously, did the man not know you didn’t just drop in on a woman?—before she threw up her hands at the loud knock on her door.
Less than a minute later, Jack was barreling into her apartment, his face set in grim, determined lines.
“What’s the matter?”
“Have you made your decision on Rome?”
“I told you yesterday I’d think about it.”
He moved in, settling his large hands on her shoulders. “Can you speed up the decision?”
“What’s happened?”
“Something big and I can’t tell you if you’re not in. All the way in.”
The light flair of flirtation and humor she associated with him had vanished from his face. In its place was a formidable bear of a man. Strength carved itself in the hard planes and angles of his body and she fought the light frisson of anxiety that skated over her skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake.
“Why is this so important to you?”
“You’re the one, Kensington. You know the job. You know the players. You know how to play the security detail to maximum advantage.”
“I’m not the only professional out there.”
“You’re the one I want and I don’t have time to get anyone else up to speed.”
She fought the delicious rush at his words. He wanted her for a job, nothing more, she reminded herself.
And when had she begun thinking otherwise?
In for a penny...
Her grandfather had used that adage so many times that Kensington had adopted it as her own. With one last glancing thought that her sanity must have abandoned her around the time she put the damn ring on the day before, she lifted her head and nodded. “Fine. I’m in. Now will you tell me what happened?”
“The agent the Italian government has in place was shot this morning.”
“Was he killed?”
“Almost. It was set up execution-style. The only thing that saved him was a last-minute burst of speed and quick thinking from his grandfather, who had a heavy pair of vine clippers in his pocket.”
“And the grandfather?”
“Died before the paramedics arrived.”
“Is the agent coherent?”
“Barely. He’s been in and out of consciousness all day. We need to get to Italy and find out what he knows, from him if at all possible. Are you with me on this?”
“Sì, Signor Andrews. It looks like we’re headed to Rome.”
Chapter 4
Kensington leaned her chair back and settled into her first-class seat. The day had sped past in a blur—arrangements for the company and her apartment, postponing some meetings, shifting others to Campbell and Rowan, double-checking details and packing all seen to with frenetic motion—and it was only now, nearly midnight by her body’s clock, that she’d finally slowed down. Her half-drunk glass of Chianti sat on her tray table next to an unopened book.
Her gaze drifted to the window, the Atlantic nearly forty thousand feet beneath them like a dark abyss.
“You going to get some sleep?”
Jack’s words distracted her from her thoughts and she turned away from the window. “Eventually. I don’t sleep well.”
“You get a remarkable amount accomplished for someone who must be perpetually tired.”
She shrugged, not quite sure how they’d drifted—yet again—to one of the odd facets of her personality. “I get by. And coffee’s a dear, dear friend.”
“Have you tried massage?”
“Yep.”
“Aromatherapy?”
“Yep.”
“Acupuncture?”
“Not in this lifetime.”
His smile was quick and immediate, even as his words were surprisingly gentle. “People swear by it.”
She fought the shudder and reached for her wine. “And they’re welcome to it.”
A wicked gleam lit that dark brown gaze, adding a new dimension to the smile. “Have I discovered something the great and powerful Kensington Steele is afraid of?”
“I’m fine with needles for basic health reasons. To voluntarily have them stuck all over my body? No way.”
His gaze drifted, a lazy perusal over her shoulders, and she fought another shiver—this one far more delicious than the last.
How did he manage to do that?
What should have seemed lascivious—or at the least a bit inappropriate—instead made her feel attractive. And, funny enough, cherished.
As if catching himself, Jack’s gaze snapped back to his own wineglass as he lifted it from his tray. “I wouldn’t go anywhere near it, either.”
“Yet you think I should?”
“Hey. I’m the idea guy. You need to relax, so I offered up a few suggestions.”
“I don’t need to relax.”
“When was the last time you got eight hours straight?”
“I don’t need eight hours.”
“Modern medical wisdom would suggest otherwise.” He paused and shifted in his chair, that gaze once again direct and all consuming. “So when?”
“I haven’t slept straight through the night since I was fourteen.”
She saw the question in his gaze—and the ready awareness he’d somehow overstepped—but still he pressed on. “Why is that, Kensington?”
“My grandmother woke me in the middle of the night to tell me my parents had died. I’ve never slept fully through the night since.”
* * *
Jack
