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“I’ll explain later.”
“No, you won’t. Tell me now.”
He sighed. “In a minute, Scarlet.”
“You’d better,” I warned, noting Rada’s approach. “I didn’t come across the ocean just to be your lap dog.” I paused. “Or sex doll.”
He shot me a look. “You’ll get to flex your muscles soon. That I can promise.”
Sated for the moment, I sat back.
Rada returned, a petite woman trailing behind her with an artfully-designed silver tray containing a single-serve French press and a gorgeous little teacup with light pink floral print along the rim. It was completely at odds with the gray, but so cute I instantly wanted to lift it with my pinky finger sticking out.
And the instant the waft of coffee beans hit my nostrils, my brainzingedwith incoming stimulation.
“Here you are, darling,” Rada said as she resumed her position.
The—maid?—went about pouring, but I stopped her with a hand out and a smile. “It’s okay. I got it.”
The maid nodded politely and departed.
“Tell me about the games in this town,” Theo said to Rada.
“Looking to pass the time while you’re here?” she asked. She put her index finger to her lips. “I can think of a few things we can do.”
“Enough.”
I paused with the coffee halfway to my mouth. Theo’s bark was often worse than his bite, but that didn’t mean it had no teeth.
Rada did nothing but cross the other leg.
“You’ll get what you want,” Theo said in a softer tone. “But in turn, I need to get what I want. And that’s the top games here in London. Where are they, who runs them, and how many times have you seen Trace?”
“There are a few well-known houses around here,” Rada admitted.
“I want your favorite.”
Rada made a sound with her tongue. “There’s one I can think of, tonight. It’s a large one, though—I doubt your brother would dare.”
“How big?”
“A room full of security cameras big.” Rada leaned over to lift up her drink. “The most categorically recorded clandestine game in the neighborhood.”
“What’s the buy-in?”
Both seemed surprised to hear from me. Funny, considering out of the three of us, I was the most active player.
Rada deigned to regard me. “Twenty-thousand.”
The Scarlet of yore would’ve been stunned and dropped her nice teacup on the expensive carpeting. I merely quirked my lips.
“Doable,” I said to Theo. “If you can stake me.”
Theo opened his mouth, probably to argue and say there was no way he was putting me in a room full of dangerous Englishmen—
“I’d be happy to,” Rada said.
I jolted. Rada’s eyes, so stark against the brown of her skin, the rimmed eyeliner, the white of her outfit. They possessed the depth of a goblin shark.
