Brave the Tempest (Cassandra Palmer #9) - Karen Chance Page 0,169

good as. Like the rest of the suite, the throne room, as the guys had taken to calling it, had been designed by a megalomaniac with an unlimited budget and questionable taste. However, for once, she’d restrained herself. Instead of strange décor choices just to show off how wealthy she was, she’d let the natural beauty of the landscape outside do the work for her. It would have been hard to top the spectacular dawns and sunsets that daily bathed the room in rose and gold, made even more impressive by the huge swath of floor-to-ceiling windows all along the side opposite the door.

However, the glittering cityscape at night, mirrored in the sky by a haze of stars, wasn’t too shabby, either. I couldn’t really compete. Although I seemed to have gotten the girls’ attention now.

“What’s going on?” I repeated, because they were both just standing there. Saffy looked defiant and guilty and seriously pissed-off, while Rhea . . .

Rhea looked a little crazed.

“They have been like this for hours,” Rico said, coming in behind me. He had a tray in his hands, with steaming mugs of cocoa on it. Because Rico is a god.

“How did you know that’s what I wanted?” I asked, taking one.

“You were muttering about it in the kitchen.”

“Was I?” Entirely possible. “I can’t find anything in there.”

“It is too large,” he agreed. “I am still learning it myself.”

“I’m never here long enough to learn it,” I said, taking a sip. It scalded my tongue, but I didn’t care. Heat and comfort and chocolate to boot. Why did anybody ever drink coffee?

“It’s good?” he asked, watching me.

I nodded, unable to answer because my nose was already back in the mug. It was one of the big ones Tami had found on arrival, heavy stoneware things that held way more than a cup. They were better than a hand warmer.

“Did you make this with cream?” I asked, because it was luscious.

“Um,” Saffy said.

“Half and half,” Rico informed me. “Cream is too heavy on its own. It is too rich, yes?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to be too rich if you’re talking about chocolate,” I said honestly.

“Uh, hello?” That was Saffy again.

“There’s a little . . . guy . . . in Augustine’s room,” I told Rico. “I think he’s harmless, but if you’re still on board—”

“I am still on board,” he told me firmly, and I couldn’t help a stupid smile from spreading over my face.

“That’s . . . good,” I said, and suspected that my eyes were wet.

“The others are meeting,” he told me. “Downstairs in the old suite.”

So that’s where they’d all gone.

“Marco is giving them twenty-four hours to decide,” he added.

I nodded, but didn’t ask any questions. They would decide what they would decide. It was frankly a relief that they even felt the need to talk about it.

I cleared my throat. “So, about the little guy—”

“I know of him,” Rico assured me. “Augustine’s suit fools the eyes, but nothing more.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was exactly why vamp bodyguards were so damned amazing. Nothing got past them. I smiled gratefully and touched his arm. “Thanks.”

He nodded soberly.

“Uh, I hate to interrupt,” Saffy said. “But weren’t you planning to yell at us or something?”

“I was planning to point out that there’s cups here for you, too.”

They looked at each other, then at me. And then they came over, because chocolate. Rico handed out the remaining mugs.

“You didn’t make one for yourself?” I asked him, because that didn’t seem fair.

“I don’t like the chocolate,” he told me.

“What?” I may have gasped.

He cocked his head at me curiously. “Why is it, whenever I say that around a woman, I get that response?”

“What response?”

“As if I had just blasphemed.”

“Well, it is chocolate,” I pointed out. “That’s about as close to heaven as we get on earth.”

Saffy snorted into her drink, and then choked. I patted her on the back, and she seemed to be okay. “Damn, I needed this,” she told me.

“We were waiting up to see you,” Rhea blurted. She hadn’t touched her cup.

“Well, now you’ve seen me,” I said. “And that’s going to get cold. Better drink up.”

She looked down and seemed surprised that she had a mug in her hands. She drank up. Saffy had already been belting back hers, and finished with a sigh. She put the mug back on the tray.

“Okay,” she said. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?” My head almost split open in another too wide yawn.

“For whatever you’re going