An Inconvenient Affair (The Alpha Brotherhood #1)(25)
Author: Catherine Mann

“Maybe because I would like to toy with you, all night long.” His hands fell to rest on her shoulders. “But we need to leave Monte Carlo first thing in the morning so you really should get some sleep.”

“We just got here. I thought we were going to play.” Is that what she wanted? To play? All she knew was that she didn’t want to say goodbye to him, not yet.

“We didn’t come here to play. We came here to get you out of the public eye.” All lightheartedness left his gaze and she saw the cool calculation at the foundation of everything he’d done. “First thing in the morning, we’re going to leave through Conrad’s private entrance. The world will think we’re here in Monte Carlo somewhere, in case anyone’s looking.”

“Where are we really going?”

“To my house.”

His house? She struggled to thread through his rapidly changing plans. “Didn’t you say you live in Virginia? Doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of lying low?”

“I said I’m from Virginia. I do have my business based there, the corporate offices. But I have a second home where I get away to do the creative part of my job—or just to get the hell away, period.”

With each word he confirmed there was so much more to him than she’d realized. She hadn’t looked below the surface, not really. Maybe because the steady logical man in front of her made the charming playboy all the more appealing. “Where would that be? Who knows where we’re going? I’m all for hiding out, but there needs to be someone to look for us if we fall off the planet.”

“Smart woman. I respect that about you.” He cradled her face in his hands, thumbs grazing her jaw, the calluses rasping over her tingling skin. “I assume you trust Colonel Salvatore.”

“As much as I trust anyone these days. The whole trust thing is…scary.”

“Good. Those concerns are there to keep you safe in life.” With a nod, he stepped away. “We’ll make a pit stop at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, and update him personally on our way.”

“On our way to where?” Her eyes followed him as he walked toward his room without pressing her to accompany him. Which of course only made her want to go with him all the more.

“Costa Rica. But before we get there, I have a surprise.”

* * *

Dinner in France?

Hillary was blown away by Troy’s incredibly thoughtful surprise. He’d remembered her wish to talk to the chefs in Chicago, and he’d taken that dream up a notch.

Some of the finest chefs in the world worked in Lyon. She’d expected to zip into Interpol and be whisked right out of the country. But Troy had given her a hat of her own and sunglasses, changed his signature fedora for a ball cap and they’d become typical tourists in a heartbeat. After an early dinner, he’d suggested a sunset walk at the municipal gardens—Jardin botanique de Lyon—in the Golden Head Park. Garden didn’t come close to describing the magnificence of everything from tropical flowers to peonies and lilies, to a massive greenhouse with camellias over a hundred years old.

The scent alone was positively orgasmic.

His hand wrapped around hers felt mighty damn special, too.

Holding hands while walking in the park was something so fundamental, so basic anywhere in the world, yet she strolled with a world-renowned guy in France, no less. Still, he made it seem like an everyday sort of date.

And there was no question but that this was an honest-to-goodness date.

Of course, this was the guy who’d cut his teeth on breaking into the Department of Defense’s network. Who was he, this man who ran in such high-profile circles but appreciated simple things? A man who worried so deeply about his brother, even as he pretended to cut himself off from deeper feelings with a carefree attitude?

Troy was getting to her, in spite of all her wary instincts shouting out for self-preservation. She wanted for once to find out the yearnings of her heart could be trusted.

She leaned in to smell a camellia. “Why did you do it?”

“Do what?” His thumb caressed the inside of her wrist.

“Really?” She glanced sideways at him through her lashes. “Doesn’t everyone ask you about it?”

He brushed an intimate kiss along her ear. “Why did I break into the Department of Defense’s computer system?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you already.” His mouth flirted closer to the corner of her lips. “I was bored.”

“I’m not buying it.” She spoke against his mouth.

“Then you tell me. Why do you think I did it?” Pulling back, he held her eyes as firmly as he held her hand.

She studied him for a second before answering honestly. “I think you want me to say something awful so you can get pissed off.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” He scowled.

“And yet, you’re getting pissed anyway, which gives you a convenient wall between us.” She tapped the furrows in his forehead.

He backed her against a roped-off area. “You want more? Walls down, total openness and everything that comes with that?”

“You’ll only find out if you answer.” She smoothed aside the long hair on his forehead, his normally cool-guy ’do pushed down by his ball cap. “If you don’t want to tell me the real reason, just say so, but it’s unrealistic to think people—especially people close to you—wouldn’t want to know.”

“You’re close to me?” He linked both arms around her, bringing her closer.

“Aren’t I?” Butterflies filled her stomach as she thought about how close she wanted to get, how deeply she wanted to trust Troy.

His arms fell away and he backed away a step. “Okay, fine…” He whipped off the cap and thrust his hands through his hair before jamming the hat on his head again. “Everyone says I had this altruistic reason for what I did, but honest to God, I was unsupervised, spoiled and pissed off at my parents for not—hell, I don’t know.”

“You did it to get their attention.” An image of him as a boy started to take shape, one that tugged at her heart. She suspected there was more to the story but that he was only going to tell her at his own pace.

“I wasn’t five.” He steered her out of the way of an older couple snapping photos of flowers, touching her with such ease, as if they were lovers. “I was fifteen.”

“But you weren’t an adult.”