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Suddenly, his hand wrapped around mine, and he pulled me to the side. The two hulking bodyguards cleared the way for us, and we went through the crowd and to the other side of the room in seconds.
“We’re not wasting time,” Dominic said. “This is actually the fastest way to get to them.” And he pulled something out of the pocket of his jacket. “Here.”
It was a tiny chocolate bar.
Butterflies took flight inside my stomach. I grabbed the bar and held it in my fist. “Thanks.” My voice was extra dry, too.
Why was he keeping chocolate bars in his pocket?
Did he think that I’d freak out or something?
Because I wasn’t freaking out. I was just a little impatient, that’s all.
“We’ve got three days,” he continued, hands in his pockets as he watched the crowd around us. I could see the fingers of his left hand moving as he played with something in there. Come to think of it, he always did that. He was always playing with something in his pocket, even back at the office. “Let’s go check out the next car and drop a hint, shall we?” And he offered me his arm.
I laced mine around it and raised my chin, putting on my best fake smile.
“You can’t smell anything?” I asked as we moved to the nearest cars on display—all of them Ferraris.
“In thisplace? I can smell everything, and that’s the problem,” Dominic mumbled, stretching those long lips into a smile again.
The bar was still in my hand, and this time, when we came close to the Ferraris, I got into the passenger seat with him. It was a beautiful car, with leather and wood and an incredible citrus smell that calmed me down like a charm. Dominic liked it a lot more than me, though. His eyes were literally sparkling as he ran his hands over the leather of the dashboard. One would think he was in love if they didn’t know who Dominic Dane really was.
When he was done inspecting, and the representative approached us, I grabbed the necklace and played with the diamond pendant, pretending to be bored while the guy gave us the details of the car.
“Baby, don’t play with that,” Dominic suddenly said, closing his hand around mine that was pulling and pushing the diamond to the sides.
“But I’m bored,” I said with a pout, and the guy who’d been talking to him smiled and lowered his eyes, as if he were giving us a second.
“I know, but that’s a diamond. You don’t want to—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It was important to your dad. I get it.” And I put the diamond under the neckline of the dress, between my boobs. His eyes moved with it until it disappeared, and his jaw popped for a second.
“Good. We really can’t afford to lose that thing,” he said in a whisper, but it was loud enough for the guy in front of us to hear. Loud enough for anyone with enhanced ears walking by us to hear.
After that, I thought someone was going to approach me while I waited at the backs of cars that Dominic checked out. I did my best to look innocent, naive, clumsy, pretending to trip on my feet every time I had the chance. Easy prey for anyone who wanted to rob me. Or kidnap me.
Yet nobody came.
Eventually, Dominic made deals for two cars—a Chevrolet and a Mercedes, which apparently were two super cars missing from Noah Bennett’s collection. It was five p.m. when we walked out of the Center where the show was taking place. We hopped into the same car—the black limo that had brought us here, the driver one of the ODP agents on the case—and we went back to the hotel.
I knew it was just the first day—half of the first day, but I couldn’t help feeling like we’d failed. I kept scanning all the faces I’d seen at the show all the way back, but nothing clicked—except Lindsay, who worked for Ford. There was just something about the look in her eyes, how she hadn’t once looked at the necklace I wore. People looked at diamonds—most of them had as I passed them by. Just not her.
So, I made a plan. Tomorrow, when we left for the show, I was going to take the sandals with me and pretend to gift them to her. That was the perfect excuse to talk to her again with Dominic close by. If she was hiding something, I had no doubt that at least one of us was going to notice.
