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Riley pointed. “Is that tiramisu?”
Pierce smiled, showing a dimple in his right cheek. Ack! So unfair. Overkill. “It is.”
“My favorite,” she sighed.
“Mine, too. But then everything here is my favorite. Black said he didn’t try for fancy, but good, and he sure delivered.”
“Man, he really did. There’s enough food here for a platoon of SEALs, not just the two of us.”
“There’s also four croissants and berries for tomorrow morning.”
Riley glanced at the kitchen. “I saw an espresso machine, so breakfast is going to be really nice. Is there fresh milk?”
“There is.”
“He thought of everything.”
“Well, considering you might be saving the free world, maybe even human civilization itself, I guess he thought it was worth it.”
That wiped the smile off her face. For a second, seeing the amazing food, giving off even more amazing smells, in the company of the most attractive man she’d ever seen, had made her forget why they were there. It all came rushing back in.
“I’m sorry I said that. Don’t think about it.” Pierce covered her hand with his. It was warm and hard. “Let’s eat and relax. There’s nothing more we can do now. You’ve done everything you could. Now we’re going to keep you safe and Black is going to try to convince his contacts at the Pentagon and in the Senate that it’s all a fake. And you gave him all the ammo he’ll need.”
“My ammo won’t stop people filled with malice and greed who have no desire to understand the truth.”
“No.” He stopped smiling. “We’ll just have to hope that the sane people outnumber the greedy people, then.”
Unfortunately, Riley wasn’t too sure there were that many sane people around, untouched by greed.
But she quite literally could not change humanity right now. And a vast hunger had come roaring up from somewhere. She hadn’t eaten since she’d gotten up this morning at six a.m. In the meantime. she’d uncovered a conspiracy, learned of her boss’s death, been chased and shot at, and climbed the side of her house.
She took in a deep breath and started piling food onto her plate. Pierce was piling even more on his.
“You took steak, so can I pour you some red wine?”
She held up her stemmed glass. “You certainly can. What’s the wine?”
He turned the bottle so he could read the label and his eyebrows shot up. “Whoa. Brunello di Montalcino 2022.” He filled her glass.
“One of the best wines produced by Italy and that’s saying a lot.” She held the glass up to her nose and took in a deep sniff. It was heavenly, blending really well with the scent of the perfectly cooked meat, the rocket, and the peppers. Like some expensive perfume. Pierce filled his plate with pasta—tagliatelle with tomato sauce and melted mozzarella. He paused, fork in mid-air. “You’re not eating the pasta?”
“I was trained to think strategically. If I eat the pasta, there’d be no room for the tiramisu.”
He smiled at her, speared a forkful of tagliatelle and twisted it around the fork. “Smart lady. They told me you were smart, and they were right.”
Her heart gave a sharp pang. ‘They’ were her friends—Felicity, Hope and Emma—and she missed them fiercely right now. She always missed them. The group they’d formed when they all worked at the NSA, even though it was in self-defense against the Boss from Hell, had been the happiest she’d ever been. The closest thing she’d ever had to a family. She’d loved it and she missed it.
Now, all three of her friends were working together across the country, in Portland, Oregon, and she was stuck on the other coast.
“How are they doing?”
“Mm?” Pierce was really enjoying his pasta. He swallowed and looked at her. “Who?”
“Felicity, Hope and Emma. How are they doing? I really miss them.”
He put his fork down. “How are they doing? Well, let’s see. Felicity is just about ready to pop, and it’s a race to see whether the kids come out first or Metal has a stroke first.”
“The kids. Twins.” She sighed. Felicity had always been the super-efficient one. Two kids for the pain of one. “Though I understand it’s been a hard pregnancy.”
