Twice as Hot (Tales of an Extraordinary Girl #2)(64)
Author: Gena Showalter

"Thank you."

"May I?" he asked politely, motioning inside the room with a tilt of his chin.

I stepped out of the way. He was a stranger to me, but he knew what it was like to make love to me. I knew nothing about him. Well, not true. I now knew he used the same soap as Rome. Wild and primal and enough to make me close my eyes and savor the familiar scent.

He sailed past me. "Sorry it took me so long. I invaded a few heads, trying to find out what was going on with The Multiplier."

"And?" I shut the door, sealing us inside. Alone, together. My trembling hadn’t stopped but had only increased. A glaze of ice formed over my chest, my arms.

"I can’t believe the bastard betrayed me. And I never saw it coming. We’ve been friends for years, stayed in touch whenever possible…we’d shared stories about our pasts…Damn it! I trusted him." I tensed, the ice spreading to my legs. I drew my arms around my middle.

Concern darkened Jean-Luc’s handsome face, and he stepped toward me, arms reaching. "I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for my anger to scare you."

I stepped back. "Don’t come near me," I said. "I don’t want to ice you. You’ll be immobilized for hours. And it wasn’t your anger that did me in. I’m afraid of what you’re going to tell me next." He stopped, dropping his hands to his sides. "Rome can temper your emotions, can’t he? But I can’t." Sadness fell like a curtain over his handsome features. "Should I wait to tell you what I found out, then?" I shook my head, hair slapping at my cheeks. "I have to know, so I can calm myself." I’d wanted to practice doing so, and now it looked like I’d have my chance.

He gave a stiff nod. "All right, then. The Multiplier has Rome and wants you, and when he gets you, he plans to sell you both to Desert Gal."

Chapter Twenty

A few of the brotherswill be around the hotel, on the lookout.

A few of the brothers will be inside, watching, waiting.

Rome will not be in the room with you. They will have hidden him somewhere else.

Over and over Jean-Luc’s warnings drifted through my mind as I strode through the Holland Hotel lobby. At reception, I asked for Matthew Brooks’s room number – 618.

The wristwatch Jean-Luc had given me showed it was 8:53. I was riding the elevator up to the sixth floor and though I was alone, it felt like a thousand pairs of eyes were watching my every move, a thousand arms ready to reach out and grab me.

Jean-Luc knew what was going down because he’d found one of the brothers, peeked into his mind and then stolen the memory of their meeting. At first, The Multiplier had simply planned to bag me when I reached the room, a room he’d rented just for me, then use me to lure Rome into a trap. But Rome, with his ear always to the ground, learned of their intent first and tried to stop them. Alone. He hadn’t trusted anyone else in the area, I guess, and hadn’t wanted to wait for those he did trust to get here.

Somehow, the brothers had gotten the better of him.

Now they only needed me to complete their plan.

"Why didn’t they just grab me at the club?" I’d asked Jean-Luc.

"Because they would have had to fight both you and Rome, and fighting isn’t their strong suit. From what you’ve told me about the club, I can assume they wanted to get you drunk, abscond with you while you weren’t operating at full capacity and force Rome to come to them. But even though they failed with you, Rome fell right into their hands."

My palms were sweating, but thankfully, they weren’t icing. Yet. I tried to concentrate only on Jean-Luc’s words, not my emotions. Success depended on me.

First, I was going to find out where they’d hidden Rome. The brother Jean-Luc invaded hadn’t possessed that information. Then I was going to ice those stupid brothers and send them to John, who would most likely make sure they spent the rest of their lives rotting in Chateau Villain.

Can you trust Jean-Luc to help as he promised?

Jean-Luc hadn’t wanted to help me save Rome. That, he’d made abundantly clear when he’d crossed his arms over his chest, lain down on the bed and refused to leave the motel room.

"Anything but that," he’d said.

So I’d had to use the worst trick ever: "If you truly want a chance with me, you’ll do this." I told myself an agent did what was necessary to get the job done, but I still felt guilty about lying to him. He had no chance with me.

His cheeks had colored bright red, but he’d stood, nodded stiffly and said something Rome liked to say:

"Let’s do this." We’d spent the rest of the day figuring out the best way to handle this situation. Which, as it turned out, was tossing me into the heart of a battle. Alone.

Unfortunately, Jean-Luc could not get close to the Holland Hotel to actually help me.

He’d tried, and had nearly collapsed from pain. Apparently The Multiplier was using some type of device that emitted a high frequency that only dogs and people with mind-powers could hear. A frequency that caused their brains to throb unbearably. Just in case. They might not realize he’d swiped one of the brothers’ memory, but knowing Jean-Luc as they did, they knew he’d be p.o.’d and out for revenge when he "discovered" how they’d double-crossed him.

Poor Jean-Luc. Betrayed by one of his only friends. For money.

So here I was, on my own. As I’d feared. "One day" had come quicker than I’d anticipated. I only prayed I was ready.

The elevator stopped, dinged, drawing my attention. The doors opened wide. I drew in a deep breath –

calm, stay calm, this has to be believable  – and sailed into the hallway. Six-eighteen was to the left, so I squared my shoulders and followed the proper path.

When I found myself standing in front of the door, my mouth dried. But I didn’t hesitate. I raised my fist, ready to knock. In the end, I didn’t have to. The door swung open on its own to reveal one of the brothers. Only one. I knew, however, that the others were close by.

He smiled at me, guilt deep in his dark eyes, and waved me in. He was not the one with freckles. "I didn’t think you’d come."

"Well, you have information I need. Right?" I strode past him, very aware I was walking into a trap and that giving him my back was foolish. But I didn’t want him to know I knew what was going on.

In the center of the room, I took a swift inventory of my surroundings. Small, as dingy as the room Rome and I had rented, with one king-size bed, a mini-fridge, a recliner and a lamp that towered over it.

"Why don’t you – "

Before I finished my sentence, a pair of hands grabbed each of my forearms. They were hot and moist.

Another of the brothers had appeared.

I released a "surprised" gasp as I switched my attention between them. "What’s going on? What are you doing? Let me go." Convincing? Not really. I’d have to step it up a notch.