CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
With a towel wrapped around Sawyer’s waist, he stepped out of the steamy bathroom and heard his new cell phone buzz. Angela’s name was the only one he wanted to see on the screen, and it wasn’t lost on him that he couldn’t shake the warm and needy feeling when he saw that it was her.
“Ready for dinner already?” he answered.
“No.” She made a sound as though he had a screw loose. “Sawyer, there’s a gorgeous dress in my closet.”
He laughed. “Oh yeah?”
“I mean, it’s gorgeous . Please tell me that you and Parker have worked out some secret rendezvous point at an opera house or something.”
“Not that I know of, sweetheart.”
“I have to wear it somewhere.”
“Well…” He opened his closet and glanced at the options hanging in it. They were far more interesting than the standard-issue pants and shirts he’d found in his suitcase. “You could wear it to dinner?”
“Where are we going?”
“The hotel restaurant? I don’t know.”
“You’re killing me, Sawyer. Please don’t do that. You’ve done too much to keep me alive. Now you have to take me somewhere to show off this dress.”
He laughed and eyed the suit hanging in the closet. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had to wear nice clothes for the job before. Sometimes, it felt as though the security gigs in Abu Dhabi and Dubai required him to wear a tuxedo or dark suit more often than not. But Sawyer didn’t know why there would be anything like that for this job in North Carolina. “Let me figure out if Parker has some grand plan first.”
“I’m going to shower with all my fingers and toes crossed.”
“What for? That Parker’s sending us to the opera, or I figure out something for dinner other than the hotel bar?”
“Both.”
He laughed and then eyed the suit hanging in the closet. Sawyer had no desire to dress up. He’d be happy to wear sweats and order room service. Then again, he’d be more than happy to see Angela in a dress that made her giddy. That laughter of hers did amazing things to him. Sawyer meandered to the closet and eyed the suit. It did nothing for him. Angela did a lot. He called Parker. “The rooms are great.”
“They should be. Great location. Excellent security.”
Everything that Sawyer would want in a temporary holding location. Still, his thoughts were drawn to leaving the hotel for a night on the town. He rolled back on his heels, still eyeing the closet. “I didn’t see new weapons or Kevlar.”
“Ha,” Parker snorted. “Contrary to popular belief, I can’t make everything arrive immediately.”
All things Sawyer knew, just as he knew they were safer inside their hotels. Then again, he expected they would have been safe inside a safe house. “Have you figured out how we were compromised?”
“No,” Parker lamented. “But you better believe I’m working on it.”
“Any new Mylene intel?”
“Actually…” Parker drew out. “Maybe. But I don’t want to get Angela’s hopes up. Let me wait a little longer and see what turns up.”
Sawyer should have pushed, but he didn’t want the real world intruding again. “All right.”
“All right?” Parker asked, keen to what should’ve been Sawyer’s line of questioning. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Is your arm worse than what you’ve shared?”
“No, it’s fine enough.” As if on cue, his bicep ached. “Nothing else.”
“That sounds like a load of shit, Sawyer. Is Angela okay?”
“Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Because it’s the second time she’s been shot at in a little over two weeks.”
“Well, yeah. Okay. That. She’s fine.” Sawyer worked through how he sounded. Like an idiot. Or a caveman. Probably an idiotic caveman. He rubbed a hand over his face. The last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to his and Angela’s situation. It’d be unprofessional, and she deserved more than speculation about her private life.
Sawyer stared at the suit and rubbed the back of his neck. He was overthinking a conversation about his wardrobe. “So, nothing on the agenda until you know more?”
“Nothing at all,” Parker confirmed.
“Great.”
“Are you bored or something?”
His mind flashed to the room across the hall and the woman who was likely standing naked and alone under the hot, steamy shower at that moment. “No, I’m surviving.” Again, he ran a hand over his face.
Parker waited for a beat. “Something’s wrong, bud. I can hear it.”
“No,” Sawyer said too quickly. “This is the thing. I don’t have a weapon, but the clothing options hanging in the closet say we’re headed for a night on the town.”
Parker laughed. “Oh, okay. I asked Amanda to make the luggage arrangements, since I don’t have Angela’s sizes on file. She probably put more thought into the clothes than I would have.”
That made sense, but Sawyer still didn’t understand the suit and dress. “Thanks, man.” Sawyer considered calling Amanda, but it was the middle of the night in Abu Dhabi. “Let me know when you’re ready to share new intel.”
“Roger that.”
Sawyer tossed the cell phone onto the bed and stared at the lonely king-size mattress. He didn’t want to sleep alone tonight; he didn’t want to sleep without Angela . She burrowed against him and made everything right in the world. He released a breath and knew he was falling hard.
Sawyer walked to the window. Their agreement was temporary. They would either find Mylene or they wouldn’t. Then they would return to their usual routines in Abu Dhabi after Angela testified against Pham. They wouldn’t be together as they were now.
That was a good thing. He didn’t have it in him to fall in love. Sawyer pinched the bridge of his nose. He wouldn’t think of the past, of what he lost, and he refused to compare Angela to—his cell phone buzzed. Sawyer dropped his head back and inhaled deeply before answering Parker’s call.
“I changed my mind,” Parker said in greeting. “I think I know where Pham’s people are hiding Mylene.”
An unreadable edge growled underneath what Parker had said and what he hadn’t. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Parker grumbled. “It’s not you…”
“Something you don’t want to tell Angela?”
“Yeah,” he finally admitted. “How’s she doing?”
Sawyer snorted. “All’s apparently fine if you have a closet filled with pretty clothes. So hell if I know.”
Parker chuckled. “Good idea on Amanda’s part. Give Angela surface-level diversions for a distraction.”
Was their hookup a surface-level distraction? Sawyer’s gut churned. Two shootings and a breakup? That made a scary amount of sense. He paced the length of the hotel room. “What don’t you want to tell her?”
“I’m unsure if Mylene is Pham’s victim or employee .”
The answer sucked all the oxygen out of the room. “Well… hell.”
“Yeah,” Parker said in another grumble. “That changes things, huh?”
It certainly did. “How do we figure the truth out?”
“Without walking in to see for yourselves, I don’t know, man.”
“Walking in where?”
“Don’t know that yet either.”
Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. “None of this sounds right.”
Parker sighed. “No. But if there’s one thing this job has taught me, the truth is never what it seems.”
Wasn’t that true in life? “Yeah.”
If they were wrong about Mylene, Pham’s people were trying to negotiate over someone else Titan Group didn’t know about. Where did that leave Sawyer and Angela? “I assume the Senator knows?”
“That’s above my pay grade.” A keyboard clacked on Parker’s side. “The more important question is where Mylene is. It’s killing me that I don’t know yet.”
“When do you think you’ll know? Today? Tomorrow?”
“Given the chatter and communication pings that I’m triangulating… I might by morning. Or, at least, I think we’ll have pinpointed the players in Pham’s US-based operational hub.”
“That’s always good.”
“Don’t sound too excited,” Parker chided. “So, what are you going to do with this information?”
Sawyer squeezed his eyes shut. “That Mylene is a possible employee?”
“Yeah.”
He recalled Angela’s excitement over a dress. “Nothing can be done right now?”
“Nothing,” Parker agreed. “So, you’ll hang tight and wait for more intel before we tell Angela?”
She would kill them for keeping this from her. “Sounds like a plan.”
The call ended. Sawyer sat at the desk by the window and batted the cell phone between his hands. Holding off until morning was the right move—and not just for him. They could learn nothing more about Mylene tonight. He set the cell phone down, picked up the room phone, and punched the zero button. “Concierge, please.”
The line was transferred, and when the concierge picked up, Sawyer was more confident in his decision. A mirror reflected the smile he hadn’t known was hanging on his lips. “I need a dinner reservation tonight for a beautiful woman in a gorgeous dress.”