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She gave a grim smile. “If it is Rodrigo, he’ll have so many men watching that you won’t be able to do a thing about it. But I agree, that’s the only way. I’ll have to do it. But if it’s Rodrigo and they grab me, do me a favor and kill me. Don’t let them take me alive, because I expect Rodrigo will want to have some fun and games with me before he kills me. I’d just as soon skip that part.”
Swain’s stomach knotted at the thought of Nervi getting his hands on her. There were hard decisions he had to make, but that wasn’t one of them. “I won’t let that happen,” he said quietly.
“Thanks.” Her smile turned a little brighter, as if he’d given her a gift, and his stomach knotted even tighter.
Neither of them had eaten yet that morning, so with Lily’s sunglasses and hat in place they stopped at a sidewalk café and had brioches and coffee. He watched her eat, his heart thudding as he wondered if this was the last day he’d have with her. He’d thought he could put if off longer, but circumstances were piling up on them. If her mystery caller was Rodrigo Nervi, there was no way they could know until the meeting, and then it would be too late.
He wished there was some other way they could do it, but there wasn’t. The meeting had to take place. She had to accept the guy’s proposal when he called tomorrow, set up a meeting, and be there. Then . . . the caller would either turn out to be Nervi, or someone else. God, he prayed it was someone else. He wanted more than one more day with her. He wanted more than one night.
He himself had gone into every job knowing it might be his last, that when you worked with violent people sometimes the violence turned on you. Lily was the same; she had put herself in the front lines and accepted the odds. That didn’t make it any easier, knowing she was there by choice.
But if Nervi and his goons were the ones who showed up and he lost Lily, he swore to God the bastard would pay. Big time.
24
Swain turned in his Mégane and, at Lily’s insistence, got a little blue four-cylinder Fiat from a different rental company. “No!” he moaned in horror when she told him what she wanted him to get. “Let’s get a Mercedes instead. There are a lot of Mercedes around.” He brightened. “I know. Let’s get a Porsche. We might need the horses. Or a BMW. Both of those sound good.”
“Fiat,” she said.
“Gesundheit.”
Her lips twitched, but she managed not to laugh. “You don’t want anything noticeable.”
“Yes, I do,” he said stubbornly. “It doesn’t matter who notices me because no one knows who I am. If I were looking for someone, I’d look at people who were driving Fiats, because that’s what you get if you don’t want to be noticed.”
Using that same theory, she had put on a bright red wig as a disguise, so he actually made sense. But by now the amusement value was so great she wanted to see him drive one of the smaller Fiats for at least a day, just to hear how creative he could get with his complaining.
“You started out driving a Jaguar, then today you picked me up in a Mégane—if anyone saw us—so anyone looking for you would already know you like fast cars. A Fiat would be the last thing anyone would look for.”
“No joke,” he grumbled.
“A Fiat’s a good car. We can get a Stilo three-door; it’s fairly sporty—”
“Meaning, I can pedal it at ten miles an hour instead of five?”
She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, so ridiculous was the mental picture she had of him on a tricycle, his long legs folded up around his ears while he pedaled like mad.
He was sulking so much he wouldn’t even approach the rental counter until she turned around and hissed, “Do you want me to put it on my credit card? Rodrigo would know about it before the hour’s up.”
“My credit card might expire from embarrassment at having something like this charged to it,” he snapped, but then he squared his shoulders and stepped up like a man. He didn’t flinch even when the car was brought around and the features pointed out. The Fiat Stilo was a quick little car, with nice acceleration, but she could tell he judged it woefully short on horsepower.
He put her bags in the back while Lily got in the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt. Swain slid the driver’s seat back before he got in, making room for his legs.
He turned the key and started the engine. “It has a navigation system,” Lily pointed out.
“I don’t need a navigation system. I can read a map.” He put the car in gear, then made a high-pitched whining noise through his nose as he accelerated. Unfortunately, the noise exactly matched the pitch of the engine noise, and Lily lost her battle not to laugh. She tried to hide it, pinching her nose and turning her head to look out the window, but he saw her heaving shoulders and said sourly, “I’m glad someone thinks this is funny. I’m staying at the Bristol; don’t you think someone there might think it’s odd that I’m driving a Fiat instead of something flashier?”
“You’re such a car snob. A lot of people rent cars that have good gas mileage. It’s a smart thing to do.”
“Unless they might have to make a quick getaway and they’re being chased by cars with bigger engines.” His expression was grim. “I think I’ve been emasculated. I probably won’t be able to get a hard-on while I’m driving this.”
“Don’t worry,” she soothed. “If you can’t, I’ll let you get whatever kind of car you want tomorrow.”
Like magic his expression lightened and he started to grin, only to have the grin morph into a grimace of acute pain as he realized the choice she’d just given him. “Ah, shit,” he groaned. “That’s diabolical. You’re going to hell for thinking of something that evil.”
She gave him an innocent look and lifted one shoulder in a gesture that said, “So?” He was the one who had taken the issue down the sexual path; if he didn’t like where he’d ended up, it was his own fault.
She was amazed that she could be so entertained, considering what they were up against, but it was as if by tacit agreement they had decided to have today just for themselves, because today might be
