By the time he returned to the living room, the boys had left. The chalkboard had been tucked in a corner, and Cordelia was organizing all the supplies and neatly stacking them inside the credenza.
Alec arrived a minute later. “I just talked to Liam,” he reported. “Here’s what he suggested. Julian is taking Simone and Craig to dinner Friday night at the Shade House. Liam is going to be there with gun and badge, and when they get up to leave, he’s going to make sure Simone sees him take a clean cloth and very carefully pick up her water glass. He wants her to see him put it in a plastic bag. He said to tell you he’s going for dramatic CSI stuff. If Simone watches any television at all, she’ll know why he’s taking it.”
“It will send her into a tailspin,” Aiden predicted.
“Let’s see what she does,” Alec said.
“What about Jenkins? Is he talking yet?” Aiden asked. The picture of the bastard’s hands around Cordelia’s neck flashed through his mind, and his entire body tensed in reaction.
“He wants to make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“All charges dropped, and he’ll tell us everything he knows.”
“And?” Aiden prodded. He knew Alec would never go for such a deal.
“We laughed.”
“I was thinking . . . ,” Cordie began.
“Yes?”
“I have to get out of here for a little while.”
Aiden shook his head at her. It wasn’t the thing to do at the moment. She turned to him and grabbed hold of his shirt. “I’m losing it,” she said. She let go of him and took a step back. “Stop smiling. I mean it. I’m really losing it.” She raised her hand in front of his face and put her finger and thumb close together until they were almost touching. “I’m this close to writing Larry a fan letter, for God’s sake. This close, Aiden.”
“Who the hell is Larry?” Alec asked.
She whirled around to face him. “Larry the fisherman.” Her tone suggested he should already know that.
Alec put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, we’ll figure something out.”
His promise calmed her. “Thank you,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Aiden was standing in the doorway of his office reading a printout his assistant had handed him when he happened to look up and see Cordelia walking past. He did a double take, dropped the paper, and rushed after her. “Cordelia.”
She turned around just as Alec caught up with her. “Yes, Aiden?”
“In order to get here you had to take the private elevator to the first floor, cross through the lobby, and take another elevator to the third floor.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I had to do.”
The muscle in his cheek flexed. “Who let you out?”
“Let me out?”
Alec could almost see smoke coming out of the top of Cordie’s head. “I let her out,” he said. “I promised her.”
“For the record, this isn’t out,” she argued. “I’m still inside the hotel. I would like to go outside.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Aiden snapped.
“This is a compromise,” Alec explained. “Until it’s safe. Come on, Cordie. Let’s go find Regan. She should be in her office.”
Aiden walked down the hall with them. “Let me know when Cordelia is coming back upstairs. I’ll go with her.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him. Frowning intently, he stared into her eyes. He acted as though he wanted to say something to her, but he kept silent.
“I’ll come get you,” she promised.
He let go of her, nodded, and went back to his office. He walked past the paper he’d dropped on the floor, seemingly unaware that it was there.
“I’m making him crazy,” Cordie whispered. “I almost feel sorry for him. He likes a calm, peaceful, uncluttered environment when he’s at home, and since I’ve been here, it hasn’t been calm or peaceful. It’s been chaotic.”
“He’s going to miss you when you leave.”
She didn’t believe that nonsense for a second. Maybe he’d miss the sex . . . the mind-blowing, incredible sex. “When will I be leaving?”
“Soon,” Alec promised. He looked at his watch. “It’s ten in the morning in Sydney, and tonight Liam will be busy at the restaurant trying to shake things up with Simone. He’ll put on quite a show pretending to collect her DNA. I wish we could see it.”
“Will she know what he’s doing and why?”
“Oh, she’ll know. The only reason to get her DNA would be to match it to yours and prove you’re her daughter. Unless she’s a complete moron, she’ll know.”
“Liam told us he already had Simone’s DNA and the results. How did he really get it?”
Alec opened the door to Regan’s reception area. “I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell. It’s better that way.”
“Liam’s CIA, isn’t he?”
Alec laughed. “No.”
She knew he wasn’t going to volunteer the information, but that didn’t stop her from prodding. She put the issue of Liam’s job aside for now and said, “Simone’s going to freak out.”
“That’s the hope.”
“Do you think we’ll see an immediate reaction?”
“Yes, I think we will.”
As it turned out, he was right. There was an immediate reaction.
? ? ?
Aiden shook Cordelia awake at seven in the morning to tell her Alec was coming over with some news, but before he could say anything, he became distracted. He hadn’t touched her in what seemed an eternity, and when she rolled over and moaned, still more asleep than awake, he couldn’t resist the temptation. She wore a little silk-and-lace nothing that barely covered her, and he desperately wanted to tear it off her. He turned into an animal with her. There was no control, no discipline. He pulled the sheet back, stripped out of his clothes, and made love to her. She more than matched him with her wild and uninhibited response.
After he caught his breath, he leaned up on his elbow. Looking down and tracing the contented smile on her lips with his finger, he said, “Alec should be here anytime now.”
She sat up, pushed the hair out of her eyes, and asked why.
“He said he has some good news for you.” There was a knock on the door. “That’s probably him now.”
She flew out of bed. “Put some clothes on,” she said in a furious whisper. She picked up his jeans and tossed them at him. “Do you have any idea . . . We shouldn’t have . . . I don’t want him to know that we . . . you know.” She took a quick breath. “Do you have any idea how frustrated I am?”
He pulled on his jeans but didn’t bother to close the zipper. Ignoring another knock at the door, he walked around the bed to where she stood. “Frustrated? How many times did you come? Two? Three times? If you’re still frustrated, then we need to get back in that bed and—”
She put her hand over his mouth and started to laugh. “Not that kind of frustration. Go open the door.”
Fortunately Alec wasn’t at the door. Room service was delivering breakfast.
Aiden called out to her, but she was already in the shower. She had become a pro at showering with the use of only one hand. By the time she was dressed, she was starving and ready to take on another day in paradise prison. Later, as she was drinking a glass of orange juice and sitting across from Aiden, who was buried in what looked like a stock report, it suddenly occurred to her how surreal it all was. They were behaving like an old married couple.