So it was a good thing looking was free. Not that she could afford even that after she’d paid the hefty retainer and tried to budget the daily expenses of keeping her father in a comfortable facility. Comfortable meant hellishly expensive. He had no insurance. Zak and Acadia weren’t aware of her financial difficulties, and Isis preferred to keep it that way. Yes, as a last resort she could ask for help. But for now, she still had options. She’d known three months ago that the money—his, and hers—would run out.
She’d debated doing the sure thing and keeping him there for another three months. Or opting to take a wild, crazy gamble and use some of her carefully hoarded funds to pay Lodestone to find her father’s treasure. There was only a month left before she had to find other accommodations for him. Twenty-eight days, to be precise.
Connor Thorne was her Holy Grail and Hail Mary.
And if she happened to enjoy looking at him, that just made things easier.
His English accent, coupled with the deep bass of his voice, made her stomach feel light and fluttery, and made her heartbeat speed up pleasantly. He might have the personality of a kumquat, but he was incredibly sexy to look at. Her artist’s eye wanted to photograph him against a rough wall, with a spear in his hand. In nothing more than a drape of a loincloth. The thought tempted her to smile. She had to settle for him fully clothed in his office. Ah. Imagination was a wonderful thing, and best of all, free.
For some perverse reason she enjoyed his pithy sarcastic responses. While she talked he kept his gaze on her face. She liked that. He might think she was full of BS, but he paid her the courtesy of looking at her, even if he was thinking about getting the oil in his car changed.
The energy humming off him was almost tangible, even though he was perfectly still. His eyes looked quite green as he steadily watched her. Observed her. “And?” he prodded not all that patiently as she considered the best way to bounce outside light to reflect off his face.
Right. The point. “Prior to that, he’d spent a year in Egypt with Dylan Brengard—that’s his assistant—searching and confirming. To make sure that when he published again, he had all his t’s crossed and his i’s dotted.” Because she’d threatened her beloved father with dismemberment if he was once more touting his find without sufficient proof—the actual tomb, ready to be opened and photographed.
“Miss Magee—” He caught himself. “Isis. I know you want to believe that he really did find the tomb this time, but the reality is that he’d ‘found’ it a half-dozen times before. And each time his peers and the international press became less and less gullible. He has Alzheimer’s—wouldn’t it be best for everyone if you allowed the media to forget as well? Surely in his condition, he can’t be as bothered by this as you seem to be?”
Not acceptable. She’d heard the same song and dance a dozen times, and she wasn’t having any of it. Not when she’d paid, and paid well, for his services. “There were fourteen of them on the dig. Some he’d rehired from various other expeditions. Half of them were new, fresh, eager to prove what he believed. He phoned me on the afternoon of the nineteenth day. He was almost incoherent with excitement.”
She put up her hand as he started to tip back his hand in the drink salute again. “No, he wasn’t drunk, Mr. Thorne. He was happy, jubilantly so. He told me they’d found the tomb. Really found the tomb. In the Valley of the Scorpions.” Not strictly true, but that had been her conclusion after he’d returned home.
“Not the Valley of the Queens?” When she shook her head, he continued with a hint of skepticism, his tone Sahara dry: “That’s an area of more than a hundred square miles. Was he more specific?”
“No. He felt strongly that if the information got into the wrong hands, someone with more resources would try to scoop him before he could get inside and document what he found.” She wrapped her fingers around the amulet her father had had made for her in a bazaar in Luxor in the good old days, when he’d been riding fame and glory for all he was worth. “Everyone on the team saw the entrance;