leave a mark.”
“Good.” His fingers had curled around the edge of the tub. He rose and turned away. He still had the towel around his hips. “Maybe next time, I’ll leave my own mark.”
“You already have.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “What did you say?”
Nothing she wanted to repeat, thank you very much. “You’re going to do recon work.”
“Yes. What I want is to slide in the tub—one that was obviously built for two—and fuck you until we both nearly drown because we’re too exhausted to crawl out of the water.”
Oh, that was certainly an—
“But someone ordered a hit on you. And I have a job to do. I need to make sure Heather’s transport goes off without a hitch, and I have to check out the cabin. I want to be certain no clues were overlooked out there.”
“I can come with you.” She started to push out of the tub. The water sloshed around her.
“No.” Gruff. A little fast. “You should do like you said before…talk to the staff. Do some recon here. I have a…a close friend who’ll be arriving soon. Antony will get every bit of intel he can from Heather’s laptop and then we’ll close in on the bastard we’re after.”
“A close friend, you say?” She sounded doubting because she was. “The same way that Eric is supposedly your best friend?”
He appeared taken back. “Who told you that?”
“You did. I heard you call him that on more than one occasion. But I got the impression you didn’t mean it.” Another mask, another ruse. She slipped back down into the warm water because she suddenly felt chilled. “Do you ever mean what you say?”
“With you, yes.” A fast response.
“Why should I believe that?”
“Because you’re different.”
No, she wasn’t. She was the same as everyone else, and part of her feared that Dex was playing her the same way he played others. He’d already kept secrets from her. “What bothers me the most,” she told him, “is just how much I want to believe you.”
His jaw was tight. “Trust me.”
Then…
He was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Trust wasn’t exactly easy for her. Never had been. Never would be. She needed facts. Evidence. Intel. And she really wasn’t the type to sit holed up in some fancy suite. If Dex was doing recon work, then she intended to do the exact same thing.
Lacey dressed quickly and made her way to the main lobby. It was easy enough to chat up the check-in staff and discover that ten different guests had checked out immediately after the incident in the ballroom the previous night. Made sense that some had fled—this was supposed to be a safe place to escape from the real world. The elites there would hardly want to stick around if gunfire was erupting.
But she didn’t think the person she was after had vanished last night. After all, Heather’s partner—whoever she’d used to help transport Roman—must have remained close.
“All of those guests have been researched.” A quiet, male voice announced from her left. “I assure you, Ms. Amari, you don’t have to worry about them.”
Her head turned. The ever-so-helpful concierge guy, Charles, had made his way to her side. She’d seen him coming, though, from the corner of her eye.
Charles waved away the check-in staff. Then he propped an elbow on the counter and smiled at her. “You don’t have to worry.” A nod. “Dex has already followed up on them.”
It would have been helpful if Dex had shared that news with her. She leaned toward Charles. “You’re on his payroll.”
A shrug. “Aren’t you?”
Her lips parted. She—
“I knew he was bringing someone here as a cover, but when I first saw the two of you together,” Charles added with another shrug, “I actually thought it might be more than just business.”
It is more. Only she didn’t quite understand what the “more” was, not just yet.
“Walk with me,” Charles invited.
She didn’t particularly feel like walking with him, but when he inclined his head toward the watchful clerks, she realized that a little distance would be a good thing. Their discussion had been conducted quietly so she knew the others hadn’t overheard, but if Charles wanted to share more info with her, she was certainly ready to listen.
They slipped into a cozy nook on the right. Charles kept a congenial smile on his face. To outsiders, it probably looked as if they were conducting a friendly conversation about the lodge. He even gestured around, as if pointing out the artwork and amenities to her.
“Where is our illustrious