Five Dates with the Billionaire - Alyssa J. Montgomery Page 0,47

evenings playing mahjong, so you’ve got to expect me to be a bit socially awkward.’ His grim expression told her he wasn’t convinced. ‘You paled before you made your mad dash under the table. I thought I’d made you panic by talking about us being together for longer than another two days.’

‘Panic?’ She tilted her head back and laughed. ‘I wasn’t panicking about anything. I don’t know how you come to that conclusion.’

Shut up! You’re overselling again and if you keep talking he’s going to hear the tremor in your voice.

She steeled herself to say what had to be said. ‘As for us staying together, if you’re going to be jumping to ridiculous conclusions like this—mistrusting me and turning what was a pleasant evening into an argument—then maybe we should end this here and now.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ He bunched up his serviette and threw it down on the table.

Calm down, Connor. Don’t draw any attention to us.

‘Please, Connor. Can we simply enjoy our dessert before we head to the airport?’

There wasn’t a chance she’d enjoy her dessert, but it might raise suspicion if they rushed out too quickly. Hopefully Lou would simply pass the whole incident off. But if he didn’t … if he went digging …

Damn that he knew Connor’s name.

Thank God they were flying out of Venice tonight. Even if Lou connected the dots and phoned every hotel in the city looking for Connor, they’d be long gone. But, a simple internet search would tell Lou exactly who Connor was and where to find him. And that would lead Lou to her.

She had to call Stanley about this.

Stanley! Of course.

Stanley was in Paris.

The weight pressing down on her shoulders eased a little.

She’d phone Stanley from the airport and arrange to meet with him—provided she could slip away from Connor.

Guilt pressed on her again. She’d have to phone her liaison agent at the FBI and tell him what’d happened. He’d be furious when he learned that she’d been wearing her mother’s necklace.

‘I’ll let this go for now, Mia, but I don’t believe you’re telling me the truth and I want to know why.’

Reaching up to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose she realised she wasn’t wearing them. ‘My glasses!’

‘I wondered how long it’d take you to miss them,’ Connor said as he reached into his jacket pocket. ‘I picked them up from the floor when you were under the table.’

Oh hell.

As if seeing Lou hadn’t been bad enough, he’d seen her whole face, unobstructed.

‘Why didn’t you give them to me straight away?’

‘I was enjoying looking at you without them.’

She held her hand out for them.

‘I’m surprised you didn’t miss them sooner.’ He took his linen napkin and began to clean the lenses. ‘You should get contact lenses, or at least buy a different frame.’

Her gut knotted. ‘Please give them back. They’re clean enough.’

A law unto himself, he held them up to the light to make certain they were clean. Her stomach hollowed out as she watched his eyes widen.

Lord! The evening was going from catastrophic to… whatever it was that was worse than catastrophic.

‘Spill,’ he demanded.

There was no use pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about but what could she say?

‘Why are you wearing these God-awful glasses if you don’t need them?’ ‘You’re an optometrist now, are you?’

‘I don’t have to be an optometrist to know these are only ordinary glass!’ To illustrate the point, he perched them on the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s it. We’re leaving and going somewhere we can talk without having to keep whispering.’

‘No!’ She reached out and grabbed his arm to stay him. ‘We can’t leave yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because …’ She cast around for a plausible excuse. ‘I want to finish my dessert.’ ‘You’re just pushing it around your plate.’

‘Connor, we promised Violet we’d have dinner here. I’m not leaving until I’m finished.’ She held out her hand. ‘Please give me my glasses back, I feel naked without them.’

With obvious reluctance, he offered her the spectacles. ‘Mia, are you in some sort of

trouble?’

That was an understatement.

She was in trouble on a whole lot of levels.

Any other time she would’ve dwelt more on the little shock of electricity that arced through her body when her hand brushed against Connor’s as he handed the glasses back. Now, all she could think about was whether or not Lou Correlli would identify her and if so, how long it would take him to reach out to Giovanni and act on the instructions