Chapter 7 #2
I let out a laugh before turning my attention to Xander, and when my eyes landed on him everything in me froze.
The muscle in his jaw ticked, and the strong column of his throat bobbed on a hard swallow.
The stoniness of his features made it appear he was pissed off, but the look in his eyes could only be described with one word. Predatory.
Oh yeah, I thought with a tiny smile. This dress is a winner.
“All right, let’s get this done so we can get home,” Hunter said, breaking the tension swelling in the room.
Xander cleared his throat and stood from his chair, moving in my direction as he opened the lid of what looked like a jewelry box.
“This is an ear piece,” he explained, pulling out one of the two small devices inside.
“It’ll make it so Hunter and I can hear everything being said between you and our target.
We can also communicate back to you, and I’ll be recording all the audio from this room. ”
“No way,” I cried, snatching up the tiny piece of flesh-colored plastic. “I get gadgets? This is so freaking cool!”
Disregarding my excitement, he pulled out the second device. “This is a wide-lens camera. Same deal as the earpiece, only we’ll be able to see everything.”
I looked at the teeny-tiny camera with a frown. “Where exactly am I supposed to put that?” I asked, waving my arms up and down my frame.
At my question, Xander’s eyes went straight to my cleavage—I gave really good cleavage—and the skin just above his awesome beard began to flush. For the first time since I met him, the big man actually looked a little nervous. “Uh . . . well, maybe . . . I don’t . . .”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Hunter groused, taking the camera from Xander. He reached for the front of my dress before pausing and getting the exact same expression on his face as Xander. “Shit, where the hell do we put this?”
“You guys are pathetic,” I said, snatching the device from him. “You said this is a wide lens, right?” They both nodded mutely. “Then that means it doesn’t need to be up top.” I tucked the tiny camera into the appliqué and pinned it in place.
Hunter clapped his hands once and stated, “All right, we’re set. Let’s check the feed and get this rollin’.”
We moved back to the computers, and Xander tapped a few buttons on the keyboard, making one of the screens split in half. One side was still of the hotel bar while the other was the view from the camera attached to my dress.
“So freaking awesome,” I breathed.
“Put the earpiece in so we can check it.”
I did as Hunter ordered and spoke, “Test. Test. One, two. One, two.” Then, just for the hell of it, I lowered my voice and said, “Luuuuke. I am your faaaatherrrr.”
“Sounds good,” Hunter stated with a roll of his eyes.
“Your mark’s there,” he continued, pointing to a guy on one of the screens.
The middle-aged man in question was sitting on one of the barstools, sipping a drink.
With a head full of patchy, thinning hair, and at least two spare tires around his waist, he was a living testament that a man didn’t need looks to get laid as long as he was flush with cash.
From my one meeting with her, it was easy to see his wife was at least three and a half decades younger and had used her husband’s bank account to surgically enhance anything on her body that a doctor was willing to touch.
I’d tried giving her the benefit of the doubt at first, but her cold demeanor in our office last week coupled with what I was seeing of the man now made the truth clear.
She hadn’t come to us because she was concerned the love of her life was having an affair.
She’d hired Alpha Omega to tail him because the prenup he’d had drawn up before they married was iron-clad, and she wanted to make damn sure she got half of everything before she divorced his ass and set up on an island resort somewhere.
My top lip curled up in repulsion. “Okay, so maybe this isn’t gonna be as fun as I thought.”
“Welcome to the job, Shortcake,” Xander chided. “Tried tellin’ you. What you see on TV is all bullshit.” He turned to look at me, a shit-eating smirk tugging at his lips, making the insufferable dick even sexier. “Feel like backin’ out now?”
My face scrunched up in a scowl. “Not a chance in hell. Let’s do this.”
With that, I turned on my heel and stomped out of the room. It wasn’t until I was riding alone on the elevator that I started to have my first niggling of doubt.
“You got this, Sage. You totally got this,” I whispered, giving myself a much-needed pep talk.
All of a sudden, Xander’s voice was in my ear, causing me to jump and let out a little squeak. “You remember I said we could hear everything from that earpiece, right?”
I frowned at my reflection in the mirrored elevator doors, knowing they could see me through the camera attached to my dress. “Were you born such a miserable bastard, or was it a skill you honed over years of practice?”
His deep chuckle reverberated through my ear and into my entire body, making my skin heat and my heart pound.
Damn, the man had such a great chuckle I was sure if he ever laughed outright I’d spontaneously come on the spot.
“You can quit at any time, you know. Everyone fails once or twice in their lives. No one’ll hold it against you if you don’t have the stomach for this kind of work.
Not all women have it in them to seduce a man. ”
Oh, this mother fuc—
The dickhead was just daring me to quit. Smiling sweetly into the elevator doors, I replied, “I’ll be just fine, thanks, but I appreciate your concern. Now shut up and let me do my job.”
The elevator dinged before the doors opened to the ornate marble lobby. I offered the couple waiting on the other side a polite smile as I stepped off, catching the husband’s appreciative glance from the corner of my eye as I passed.
Ducking my head to hide my face behind the curtain of my hair, I lowered my voice to a whisper and said one last thing to the asshole in my ear. “Oh, and Xander? I’d be careful leaving any food or drinks around the office from here on out.”
“Yeah? Why’s that?”
“’Cause I have every intention of poisoning you.”
And with that, I tuned him out and got down to the task at hand.