They’d call her flight, and after she turned to board, he’d stand there waiting until the last possible second to watch her go.
“They have Yermalof in custody, and they should be”—he angled his wrist to check the time, then remembered they’d taken his watch off him when they’d been kidnapped—“arresting the Earl at his London residence within the hour. I imagine it’ll be on the six o’clock news.”
Isis lifted her head. “How do you feel about him being involved in this?”
Plucking her glasses from her nose, he reconsidered and removed them by the earpiece. “He wasn’t merely ‘involved’—he started by hiring Yermalof a decade ago,” Thorne said coolly, cleaning the lenses on his shirt hem for the last time. He’d miss the silly little ritual. He’d developed a thing for cheeky girls wearing glasses. “Yermalof told him of your father’s obsession with Queen Cleopatra, and the Earl cultivated that relationship slowly and insidiously over the years. Yermalof put together the Earl and the minister for a trio that was a match made in hell. The minister found Brengard—it’ll take a while to get through all the layers. There are a dozen ministers who were involved in small ways, people bribed to look the other way. There’s a long food chain.”
“I mean do you care emotionally that your father will be imprisoned for his part in this? I just care about how it’ll impact you.”
He stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Soft, warm skin, vibrant and alive. His chest ached. “Not at all.” His father meant nothing to him. Isis… Isis meant everything.
“Then can we go and watch his arrest on TV?” she suggested with relish.
Thorne laughed as he held up the key Heustis had given him on his way out. “Let’s. The Four Seasons is only a few minutes away.” Another couple of hours with her was a windfall, no, a reprieve he wasn’t going to pass up.
“DO YOU WANT TO see this?” Isis asked. “They just announced Scandalous Breaking News!” She sat cross-legged at the head of a king-sized bed in the Palace Suite at the Four Seasons Hotel, a room service tray in front of her, a glass of soda in one hand and a strawberry in the other. She looked over to where he was standing, using the cell phone lent to him by Husani.
Thorne had booked them in, ordered room service, made arrangements with the boutique for clothing for both of them, hit the jewelry store for a watch, and was currently in contact with his associates to ensure Yermalof was locked and loaded on board a flight to Tel Aviv, and that the prisoners from the warehouse were en route to join him shortly. All in less than thirty minutes. Perhaps if the return to MI5 didn’t work out he could be a concierge, he mused, watching Isis nibble on a plump red strawberry.
“Do you want popcorn, too?” he asked, amused as she wiggled her behind to get more comfortable as he sat beside her. It had been his nefarious plan to place the tray on the bed. Exactly where he wanted her.
“Are you kid—” She slanted him a glance. “Yes, you are. There’s more food here than we can eat in a week.”
Not if they holed up in the room for several days, Thorne thought, bringing her hand to his mouth and biting her strawberry in half. She leaned sideways to press her lips to his. “Yum,” she murmured, straightening, her eyes glued to the television.
The kiss, so casual, so natural, was so Isis.
“Sound,” she directed, hands full. And so was her desire to be the boss.
The remote lay between them. With a small smile Thorne picked it up and turned on the volume as he swung his feet up on the mattress, then stuffed a pillow behind him.
The attractive blond news reader was replaced with live footage of his father standing at the top of the stairs outside the house, flanked by two plainclothes detectives. “. . . Earl of Kilgetty, seen here exiting his London residence moments ago, has just been arrested by police in connection with allegations of trafficking Egyptian antiquities.”
“He doesn’t seem particularly worried,” Isis observed, moving the tray and stretching out her legs beside his, then draping one leg over his good knee as she avidly watched the Earl being escorted down to the street where reporters clustered, shouting questions.
“It’s a British thing. Stiff upper lip. Never let them see you sweat.”