then strode over to the discarded articles and snatched them off the floor. The shoes he placed on a small table beside the door leading to the bedroom. The dress didn't cooperate as well, but he managed to fold it into a slithery bundle that he balanced on top of the sandals. "All tidied up," he told himself.
Could it be that easy?
We've escaped, just for the night. A single night, she'd said. Now that it was morning, could they return to their previous relationship? Which was no relationship at all, he hurriedly assured himself.
There was a knock on the suite's outer door.
On the other side, he discovered, stood his agent, Frank De Luca. The man was dressed in a coat and tie and carried a supersize manila envelope that rivaled his belly in the bulging department.
"Uh, hey," Griffin said and had a sudden image of Jane walking out of the bedroom clad only in a towel, or maybe even less. With a glance over his shoulder, he stepped to block the gap in the door. "What are you doing here?"
"I got a text this morning," Frank replied, his gray brows beetling over his pudgy boxer's nose. He was half Irish and half Italian, which made him a perfect advocate for his clients. He loved to fight. "From Janie."
"Janie? You call her Janie?" Ian Stone had called her Janie.
The other man waved a hand. "I've known her since she was a kid. Her dad was a client of mine at one time. Aren't you going to let me in?"
Letting Frank in could complicate matters. And also postpone Griffin's return to the cove. He glanced at the envelope. "If that's for her, you can hand it over and be on your way. I'll make sure she gets it."
"This is yours," Frank said. "And I'm here to talk with you too."
What could he do but open the door? "I thought you said Jane sent you a text," he muttered as the other man passed him on his way inside.
"To say she was sorry she missed me last night. But when I found out you were both still in town, I decided to drop by."
"Wonderful. Terrific. Always a pleasure," Griffin lied. Thank God he'd picked up Jane's fallen clothes. He wouldn't have wanted to explain them away, he thought, watching the other man toss the envelope onto the table in front of the couch. "What's that?"
"Stuff the magazine was holding for you. They forwarded it to me since you went missing."
"If I went missing, how come the book doctor, my sister and my agent all find me so damn easily?"
"Why are you so damn set on being hard to find?" Frank countered.
Griffin pasted on a smile. "How are the wife and kids?"
Frank hitched up his pants at the thighs and then settled into one of the room's armchairs. "Spending about twenty-three hours of the day in the pool. Raeanne is teaching Tim how to dive. Amy can almost swim one whole length underwater."
Pride puffed Frank's chest so that it nearly matched his belly. Still, since marrying Raeanne, he'd dropped about twenty pounds and his face wasn't quite so unhealthily florid. "Have you been watching your blood pressure and eating better?" Griffin asked, sitting on the couch across from the older man.
"Sure. Raeanne insists on all that organic age-free crap."
Griffin bit down on his smile. "I believe you mean free-range."
"Free-range, age-free, what's the difference? She made something for dinner last night with tutu."
"Tofu."
"It wasn't sirloin, that's all I know. But it makes her happy, so..." He shrugged. "She's been good to me. Marriage has been good to me. I highly recommend it."
Griffin thought of Tess, who'd run from her husband to the cove. Of David, sleeping in his kids' sleeping bags on the beach. "Glad to hear it."
"You know what I'm not glad to hear?" Frank asked, crossing one ankle over his knee. "Janie says you're not making much progress."
Shit. "There's an office. Whiteboards. Sharpened pencils."
Frank just looked at him.
Double shit. "I've never missed a deadline. You know that."
And still Frank looked at him.
Griffin shifted his gaze. Outside the window, the sky was that flat blue of summer, as if it had been ironed by the heat. This time of year in Afghanistan, the temperature was brutally hot, matching the increasing violence as insurgents climbed over the mountain passes to engage the troops. It was a deadly season that might only be mitigated if the previous year's lousy crop yield forced the other side's fighters