Page 28 of Colombian Chemistry

“Good. Because you’d be terribly disappointed. That shit is long gone.”

She laughed again and glanced to the empty spot on the bed.

“Seriously. Lay down. Your feet must be killing you after all that walking. We need a good night’s sleep. I promise I won’t steal your virtue either.”

She chuckled and cautiously slid onto the bed next to me. We lay side by side, staring up at the thatched ceiling.

“My virtue is long gone too. David Jones. Freshman year at college.”

“David?” I asked with a smirk.

“Yeah. What’s wrong with that name?”

“Just the fact it’s the first name you said when you were trying to guess mine.”

“I did?” She rolled her head over to look at me.

“You did.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything. And you thought my name was David, who you had sex with, so that can lead me to deduce that you were thinking of me sexually.”

I rolled my head over to face her and waggled my eyebrows. Her eyes enlarged to saucers as her mouth fell open. “I was not!” She slapped me on the shoulder.

“Were to, you pervert.” I pushed her back. “I felt you looking at my ass all day.”

Her horror transformed into hysterics as she shoved me again. I couldn’t contain my laughter and joined her as we pushed each other back and forth—me calling her a pervert on repeat and her denying it though her words lacked conviction. When we’d finally came to a stop, our laughter petered out on matching sighs.

“Fine. I was looking at your ass,” she admitted with a chuckle. “But in my defense, you were walking in front of me for the entire day. There wasn’t much I could do to avoid staring at it.”

I pursed my lips and shrugged. “Can’t blame you. It’s a nice ass.”

“It is.”

Once again, we chuckled as we lay side by side.

“Marcus?” she asked softly.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think my Dad is still alive?”

Oof. Tough question.

After a long moment of silence, I turned to look at her. Those blue eyes of hers shimmered with tears. My heart clenched in my chest.

“I don’t see any reason to think not. In my training, when we did rescue missions, they always taught us to assume life until we had proof there wasn’t. We have no proof of anything right now other than he’s missing.”

“You’re right,” she said softly. “There’s no reason to assume the worst.”

I furrowed my brow as a realization slammed into me like a Mack truck. “Wait a minute. If your dad isn’t loaded, then why are they trying to take you for ransom?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea. I played along with your ransom theory before because I needed you to think I was rich, but in reality, I’ve been over here trying so hard to figure out why the cartel is actually after me.”

“Wanting you for a multi-million-dollar ransom is one thing, but with the effort that they’re putting into finding you without a huge payday, it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Mistaken identity?”