Total pages in book: 172
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155984 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
She was soaking in the steaming bathwater when he walked in, barefoot and naked himself. He simply stepped into the tub and joined her, sinking into the water opposite her so he could watch her face as they talked. The hot water was working its magic. Her hair was wet and piled on her head. Her face was clean and free of all lines of worry. She looked hopelessly young, as she did sometimes, and very relaxed. Her eyes were closed and she smiled faintly when he joined her, but she didn’t open her eyes.
He circled her ankle and picked up her foot to stroke her calf with strong fingers. “You were going to tell me about the conversation that had your crew so concerned, Flambé.” He kept his voice low, that velvet-soft, mesmerizing voice that played over her senses, the one she responded to the most.
“They were mostly giving me a hard time about the rescue operations. My team is bringing in a woman and her three children. She was caught on camera recently in her leopard form. Strawberry leopards are so unusual that they make huge headlines if they’re seen. She was seen in a big way because she had three kittens with her. Scientists are trying to prove why their spots are red, not black, and where the strawberry leopards come from. But there are so few because poachers want their furs . . .” She broke off, sighing. “It’s a big mess.”
He waited, not hurrying her. He pushed his thumb into her tense, tight muscle and rubbed until he felt it slowly give way and then massaged gently. There it was again. The truth. Misleading him. What was she hiding?
“They think I trust too much. Maybe I do, Sevastyan. The internet has made it so much more difficult for me to go anywhere without being seen. My father could slip in and out of a country and no one was the wiser, but now, if I take two steps somewhere, Franco knows or those people who put a price on my head are watching the airports and they know.”
That was all true. “Is that what these men were worried about?”
Her lashes fluttered and she frowned as she opened her eyes to look at him. “Sort of. It all kind of fits together. Are you sure you want to hear this? I haven’t really figured out if they’re right or wrong. They gave me a lot to think about.”
He didn’t want to tell her that he was the only one she needed to figure it out with, but it was the truth. If he didn’t get a satisfactory answer from her, he would be talking to all three of the men, one at a time, until he was satisfied. Something in the way they were acting really bothered him. He kept his fingers relaxed as he switched to massaging her other calf.
“Bounce it off me.”
“The woman, Shanty is her name, insisted on meeting only with me when she’d never met me. My team was going to extract her, but she wanted me to go to South Africa myself to escort her and the children to the United States. I have a perfectly good team and they explained to her that it was impossible for me to come. When she balked, I had to tell her that if she didn’t go with them, we couldn’t pull her out. For some reason, all three of the men didn’t like that she was insistent I go to her. They thought it was strange.”
He kept his gaze on her face. He didn’t allow his heart to accelerate or any change to his breathing. If these three men thought there was a problem, there most likely was a problem.
Her teeth sank briefly into her lower lip and then she sighed again. “My father didn’t want me to continue with rescuing. He said it was becoming too dangerous.” She made the confession in a little rush. “I disagreed with him. It was the only thing we argued about right up until he passed away. I have a team of investigators and they’re very good, but maybe the men are right and I hurry them because I’m so afraid of losing someone. I need to be more careful.”
Or not do any more rescuing. Sevastyan didn’t say it aloud. He was going to consider how to keep her safe and not sound like a dictator. Clearly, she felt passionate about what she did. To just tell her she had to stop when she wouldn’t do it for her father wasn’t going to work. He needed a better solution.
“It’s nice to know the men who work for you also look out for you,” Sevastyan said, his voice mild. He was going to make certain he knew everything there was to know about them. He hoped to enlist their aid. He also wanted to talk to her investigation team and find out about this woman, Shanty.