A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [61]
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Somewhere busy. Somewhere we can blend in and not draw attention to ourselves.”
She nearly growled in frustration. “Who are you?”
“I’ll explain everything once we arrive.”
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She’d come looking for him to hear what he had to say for himself. Doubts about his veracity niggled at her, but when Roman turned to her, his gaze intense, his mouth moist, as if he’d just softened his lips with his tongue, as if he wanted nothing more than to kiss away the tension she knew emanated in fractious waves off her body, she knew he’d tell her the truth.
And that frightened her most of all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“NICE PLACE,” MARIO SAID, his tone tight and uncomfortable as he slowed his cab in front of the famed Sherry-Netherland hotel.
Roman nodded but didn’t speak. He handed Mario a few bills, making some sort of gesture of male-to-male understanding and exited the cab.
On her way out, Rachel placed her hand on the back of Mario’s seat. He stopped her.
“You’re all right with this?” he asked.
Rachel watched Roman just outside the taxi, scanning the street methodically as he waited.
“He won’t let anything happen to me,” she said, completely convinced of that truth, if nothing else.
Mario harrumphed. “Damn straight he won’t. Before I agreed to play a part in this, I told him there was no place on God’s green earth he could hide if you got even a scratch on your pinkie.”
Rachel wiggled her littlest finger at him. “Me and my pinkie will be fine. I have your cell phone number in my pocket. I’ll call you if I need anything, I promise.”
Mario didn’t seem happy about letting her go, but he didn’t interfere. Rachel knew she needed to do this and she couldn’t deny the way her heart lightened at knowing that Roman wanted to talk, too. Hadn’t he come when she called? Hadn’t he taken the care to move them to a location where they could speak freely? Clearly, he wanted to explain. Or at the very least, he believed she deserved his time.
She hadn’t forced him to come back for her, and from what she could tell by the hurried way they dashed through a side entrance to the hotel’s back stairwell, Roman was still concerned that he might be recognized. After they’d climbed several flights of stairs, he immediately slid a card key into the nearest guest-room door on the sixth floor, and in seconds they were inside.
Safe.
Alone.
He reached into the closet, pulled out a mechanical device she didn’t recognize, attached it to the door and flicked a switch that activated a blinking red light.
“What’s that?”
“Combination alarm and jamming device. No one will come in without us hearing and no one will be able to listen from the other side to what we say.”
Or do.
Rachel cursed at herself for allowing such a libidinous thought into her brain. This wasn’t going to be about sex. She’d arranged to meet Roman so that she could understand why and how they’d ended up together—and if anything beyond the lust had been real.
Or especially if lust had been all they shared.
Luxury hotel rooms weren’t exactly an everyday occurrence to Rachel, so she couldn’t help but be swept away by the plush carpets, antique furniture and glistening chandeliers. Except for a stack of barely touched magazines on the coffee table—Vogue, Cosmo and Elle among them—the room looked unoccupied. Even the bathroom seemed bereft of a toothbrush or a discarded towel.
“Whose suite is this?”
“A friend’s,” Roman replied. “We have until morning.”
Spying a flash of material under the bed, she leaned down and gingerly retrieved a tiny pair of black thong underwear.
“A female friend? Good God, not the woman who kissed you.”
“She only kissed me to piss you off,” Roman explained.
Rachel dropped the panties as if they were a dead bug and rushed into the bathroom to wash her hands, tossing a spiteful, “She succeeded” over her shoulder as she flew by him.
Roman was close on her heels. “She’d had me under surveillance and knew you’d followed me from your apartment. She was trying to discourage