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12
DISCARDED HEARTS
A black carrumbled idly as we disembarked. I half expected a red carpet to be laid out to the vehicle, lest our shoes touch upon pauper’s dirt.
“Is this the same private airport the Royals use?” I asked Theo’s back as he loped in front of me.
“No,” he said, without even a half-turn in my direction.
“Huh.” I fixed my purse on my shoulder as I walked. “Guess the Saxon reach isn’t as far as I thought.”
I felt his eye-roll through his hood.
“No dinner with the Queen?” I asked, rounding the car to reach the passenger side. “I don’t suppose it’s proper monarch etiquette to host illegal poker games?”
“Do I have to listen to this the entire time we’re here?”
“Give me my phone and I’ll shut up.”
Theo strode around the hood—or, now that we were in England, thebonnet—of the car until he was almost flush against my chest. I half choked on a surprised swallow, both at the sudden heat of him and the closeness of his mouth, about all I could see due do the clouds smoking up the grey skies.
“Can I at least meet one of the royal Corgis?” I asked.
There. Properly recovered.
Theo leaned against the closed door, his arm draping across the roof. His perfectly drawn lips parted. “Passenger side’s that way.”
I bit my slightly asymmetrical lower lip. Instead of giving him any satisfaction by stuttering or apologizing, I hiked the purse strap up my shoulder again and passed him to get to the other side, making sure at least my elbow brushed against his arm.
It was almost desperate, the way I wanted to prove our chemistry, even after all this time, even if only physical. Even if I knew it couldn’t come to anything.
Aside from a light jostle, Theo didn’t react and opened the driver’s side door. By the time I reached the other end, he’d slid over and propped open my door, which I caught on the first swing.
“Ever the gentleman,” I muttered.
Once I was in, he kicked up the engine. “I thought you didn’t want any special treatment.”
“I don’t.”
“Mm.” He turned the car in a smooth arc and out of the private airport. At some point, our bags must have been put in the trunk—boot—but as usual, Lurch’s maneuvers were a silent mystery. As far as I was concerned, I had my wallet and passport tucked into a small cross-body clutch that I would keep near at all times. No Lurch or Saxon would get their hands on it, just in case I was forced to escape and make a spontaneous quick exit.
I relaxed against the ebony leather, cool on the backs of my thighs and probably soon to be sticky. “Are you going to let me in on more of the plan here?”
“I already told you,” Theo said as we drew up to a light in a small, two-way road. In fact, many of the roads here were smaller, all the cars whizzing by us more compact. Totally unlike the keg barrels of SUVs and six lane highways of the United States. “We’re getting ready for another game.”
I parsed through the hidden words in Theo’s vocabulary, something I would need to brush up on now that we were back to exchanging dialogue. “Is Trace playing or running games around here?”
“Neither.” Theo gunned it as soon as the light changed. My immediate reaction was to clutch what Cassie always called theholy shit barlocated just above the window, but I resisted and clenched my hands on either side of the seat instead.
“Trace doesn’t show his face in known game rooms anymore. He keeps his connections small, and then it’s only when he has to. Like now, when he needs to make money somehow, and hires lackeys to do it for him.”
The car veered as he passed a slower vehicle in front of us, Theo’s speed never dipping during the lane change.
I unlocked my jaw to say, “Calling them lackeys is a disservice. I assume they’re pros, able to get him the money he needs, plus a commission, in only a few games before moving on.”
“You are entirely correct.” Theo’s lead foot continued, and to my dread, no other traffic—or lights—were ahead of us. He had free reign to speed.
God.My stomach heaved.
