“I don’t know. Anywhere, I guess.”
She rolled over to the nightstand, picked up the television remote, and held it out to him. “Here. You don’t have to go. You can watch TV, if you want. I’ll sleep right through it.”
For the first time in a long time, uncertainty crept through him. He hesitated, then took the remote.
Their fingers brushed.
“Thanks.” He eased into a chair as if sudden movement might startle her into changing her mind.
She stood up and stretched. “You don’t mind if I change, do you? It’s nothing you haven’t already seen, anyway.”
The black pajama set? “Of course not. Go right ahead.”
Raya scooped up the set from a dresser drawer and retreated to the bathroom.
Phoenix fixed his gaze on the television’s mindless drivel and tried very hard to think about anything but a headstrong witch in black pajamas.
21
Raya opened her eyes, stretched, and sat up in bed. She squinted at the TV. “What on earth are you watching?”
“Le Juste Prix. Get dressed. We’re going to a bakery.”
“But I’m still full!”
“We’re not going for the food. We’re going to talk to the baker.”
Raya tossed pillows out of the way as she clambered out of the bed. “Did it ever occur to you to try making sense when you talk?”
“What’s the point? You’d only ask silly questions.” He dodged the pillow she flung at his head.
Phoenix turned off the French version of “The Price Is Right” and waited for her to dress. If she didn’t like his cryptic answer, she really wasn’t going to like his straightforward one.
Raya emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed but still rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “All right, Captain Mysterious, where are we really going?”
“I told you.”
“A bakery?”
“Right down the street.”
“You’re joking.”
“I am not.” Phoenix stood up. Better to have this conversation out in the open, where she’d be less likely to yell at him.
Who was he kidding? Nothing was going to make that less likely.
He stopped her on the sidewalk just outside the hotel. “Do you remember why you chose this hotel?”
She shrugged. “Someone said it was in a nice neighborhood near the convention center?”
“Right. That someone was me, remember?”
“So?” Raya shaded her eyes from the sun and watched the traffic go by.
“So, I may not have been completely straightforward about that.”
She rounded on him. “What do you mean, ‘not completely straightforward’?”
