Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“Well, since I’m here on time, I have to suspect you and Ms. Summers wanted some time to yourselves.” Green smiled, but the words came out like an accusation.
She merely sat back and let her face find the sun. “I arrived a little early. It’s too gorgeous a day to waste it inside. It’s the first time I’ve been alone in weeks. And Ezra’s already yelled at me for the tabloid fuck up. You want to yell, too?”
Anything to make him not wonder about what they truly had been discussing. The last thing she wanted was to get Ezra in the doghouse when he was trying to help her out.
“Absolutely not.” Levi winked her way. “You looked stunning in that dress. I take it Hunt hooked you up? Because the Agency didn’t pay for that.”
“We did the Pretty Woman thing up and down Rodeo.” She had a closet full of designer wear that per her contract was all hers. Dresses and shoes and lingerie and jewelry. All of it bought by Josh and heading home with her when their contract was voided.
“So he dressed you like a pretty doll?” Levi asked. “Or did he toss you to a glam squad?”
“A what?” Ezra proved he wasn’t up on all the hip lingo.
“Oddly enough, no,” she replied, ignoring Ezra. “I kind of thought he would drop me off or hand me over to a stylist, but he went with me the whole day. Not that he was up in my business or anything. He let me buy what I liked, but he was sweet about it. He wanted to see it and give me his opinion.”
And he’d fucked her in the dressing room about halfway through the day. He’d fucked her hard, his hunger so evident she hadn’t even had a moment’s qualm about accepting him.
But apparently she wasn’t supposed to talk about that. If her CIA handlers were anything like Shane they would get all prissy and prudish. Maybe it was time to move on. “You two called me here to ask about my new clothes? Because I can talk about that all day. I bought the most gorgeous Prada sheath.”
Levi sat forward, his elbows on the little table. “Did anything odd happen yesterday? Did he get any phone calls or talk to anyone you noticed?”
“He’s always on his phone.” Though lately he’d started turning it off when they were together physically. He claimed he wouldn’t let anyone interrupt their play time.
It was starting to feel like something more than play. He’d stopped knocking on her door. He slid into bed beside her each day, the early morning light barely kissing the room as he put his hands on her and brought her to life.
“So there was nothing that seemed off to you?” Ezra stared at her like he was waiting for something.
“He disappeared for about twenty minutes, but Declan had an eye on him. He walked out of the shop, took a phone call, got into it with a photog, and then came back in.”
And that was when he’d come into her dressing room, filled with demands, a rough edge to his voice and that “won’t take no for an answer” gleam in his eyes. The paparazzi must have been unpleasant, to say the least. The police, however, had been quite pleasant.
Levi’s eyes narrowed as though he was sizing her up. “According to records, at two thirty-three p.m. yesterday your boy got a call from a phone number that had recently been activated and had never been used.”
“So someone called him from a burner,” she prompted.
“That number is now out of service,” Levi continued.
The man was good at stating the obvious. “Hence me calling it a burner.”
Levi frowned her way as if she was taking all his fun away. “We can’t trace who bought the phone. It was paid for with cash and there were no cameras close, but we do know the date and time of the call. Every year on this date at close to two thirty, Joshua Hunt receives a phone call. A day later, Hunt transfers funds from his own account to an offshore one, and that’s where we lose track. This happens four times a year. Like clockwork.”
What was Josh hiding? He hadn’t mentioned what the phone call had been about and now that she thought about it, she should have been surprised that he’d gotten violent with a photographer. Still, she’d gotten to know the man. “You honestly believe that Josh is…doing what? Funding a cartel? I’ve lived with the man for weeks. I can promise you he’s not doing drugs himself, so he’s not buying. He’s the single healthiest man I’ve ever met. He’s certainly not selling. Shane and Dec vet absolutely everyone who stops by. They’re all Hollywood types or his housekeeper or people from the club, and Riley has vetted those.”