Chapter 24
“A weapon?” Lincoln frowned as he listened to Zara’s word-for-word account of her conversation with Tanaka’s alcoholic younger son. “He must have been talking about something else. The CHUM isn’t a weapon.”
“Didn’t you say it knocked all the power out?” Zara paced around their suite. Eddie had crashed out for a nap and was snoozing away in his room, while Mia was hanging out at Juicy Java with a friend. “That sounds like a weapon to me.”
“A very limited one. Nothing like what Nathan was describing. Nothing that could conquer Spain.” Lincoln felt a pit in his stomach. “Are you sure he wasn’t just talking out of his ass to impress you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. But I don’t want to take a chance, not with the kids involved.”
“Agreed. Absolutely. We’ll check out tomorrow.” The quickness of his agreement made her stop pacing. Her maxi dress flowed around her body, emphasizing every curve. All this would be easier if she wasn’t so freaking sexy.
“Really? You think we’re in that much danger?” she asked, eyes widening.
“Why wait around to find out?”
She nodded nervously, then picked up a tangerine from the fruit platter that got delivered every day to their suite. He watched her toy with it, wondering if he’d ever feel her fingers playing with him like that.
They’d slept in this suite three nights, and not once had he gotten a good night’s rest. All he could think about was her. Keeping his distance had been excruciating, but essential. They couldn’t afford the distraction, and getting closer to her, getting sexual, would be all-consuming—he knew it.
“Did you learn anything when you snuck away today?” she asked.
“A bit.” He grinned, still feeling the satisfaction of his successful mission. “I learned that Tanaka has zero respect for either of his sons. He’s furious with both. And he’s keeping something in his hotel safe, something so valuable that it’s being guarded by four highly trained armed guards.”
She dropped the tangerine back into the bowl. “Please don’t tell me you’re planning to break into that safe.”
“Is this an Ocean’s Eleven movie? Absolutely not.”
“Are you going to get your security team to do it?”
“No. I’m not going to do anything. Because you just told me they’ve already lost part of it. If I can find the piece that Nathan lost, I can figure out what this weapon talk is all about.”
“He didn’t lose it,” she said absently, as she perched on the arm of the couch and crossed one knee over the other. Her maxi dress slid across her leg, revealing a glimpse of delicate ankle, sleek tanned skin, and shimmering toenail polish. “His guard did.”
“What difference does that make?”
“I’m not sure, but there’s something that’s been nagging at me.
” She frowned and looked up at the ceiling, as if reliving some thought process.
Then she snapped her fingers. “That’s it.
Mia found a good luck charm in hale twelve after we left it that day, when Tanaka’s guard came to the Royal Leilani. Remember, the day we met?”
“I don’t know, there was a lot going on that day,” he teased, deadpan. “You can’t expect me to remember everything.”
“No, of course not,” she began, but he cut her off. Striding to her, he put his hand under her chin and tilted her face.
“You had your hair in that silly topknot.” He touched her hair, which was already returning to its natural wavy state.
“You were wearing the standard Royal Leilani uniform, as well as a stack of bracelets, at least one of which was a friendship bracelet made from purple thread. You had a pimple next to your nose.”
Her hand flew to her nose. “You saw that?”
“I saw everything. But don’t worry, I liked it.”
“You liked my pimple?”
“I liked everything.”
Under his intense gaze, she turned several shades of pink. “Anyway,” she said, breathless, “you’re distracting me from the main point.”
Right now, for him, she was the main point. He slid his thumb across her cheekbone, savoring the silky texture of her skin. “Go on,” he murmured in a deep, gruff voice. “I’m paying attention.”
She blinked at him, as if she’d completely forgotten what she was talking about. The fact that she reacted to him that way was deeply satisfying.
“Mia,” he reminded her. “Hale twelve. The day we met.”
“Oh yes. Her good luck charm. We Morrisseys are obsessed with charms because in general we have very bad luck. Anything cool we find, we turn into good luck charms. That day, she found a shiny iridescent chip on the floor. I’d never seen anything like it.
We thought it was some kind of jewel or maybe a piece of electronics. When I touched it, it felt warm.”
Oh my God. “Are you saying Mia found a piece of the CHUM?”
“I have no idea what it was.”
“Is it mostly clear, with a bluish tint?”
She shook her head. “No. It had some pink in it. It was a smooth disk, maybe two inches in diameter.”
“Then it’s not the CHUM. It’s something different. You’re right, the guard must have dropped it that day.”
Zara snapped her fingers. “Which explains why I haven’t seen him here at the resort. I bet he got fired or sent back to Japan. So what do you think it is?”
An idea was forming, one he didn’t like one bit. “We need to find it. Where is it now?”
“It’s probably at home. I doubt she’s carrying it around with her. She wouldn’t want to lose it.”
“Let’s go, then.” He caught her by the hand.
“Now?”
“If Tanaka had any idea it was there, his people would tear your place apart. If they didn’t burn it down first just to make sure.”
She turned pale. “Our insurance policy lapsed. I can’t afford a house fire right now.”
“Don’t worry about that.” He scowled at her, amazed that she didn’t understand this situation. She was under his protection. Whatever harm came to her, he’d fix. “You’re with me now. I’ll get you a new house.”
He tugged on her hand, pulling her off the arm of the couch.
“What? That’s insane, you can’t just get me a new house.” She pulled her hand out of his grip. “And I’m not going anywhere. Have you forgotten about Eddie?”
He put a horrified hand to his forehead. He really had forgotten Eddie for a moment. And he loved the kid! But the excitement of learning about a possible lead had chased everything else out of his head. “God. Sorry.”
“You are the worst freaking manny in the world,” she said. “Your next performance review is going to be hell on your oversized ego.”
He wanted to laugh, but at the same time he felt so bad that he couldn’t. “I’m really sorry. I got carried away. Of course we’re not going to leave Eddie, not even if the fate of the world is at stake.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “The fate of the world? Are you serious?”
“If the chip you found isn’t from the CHUM, my educated guess is that it’s part of how they plan to weaponize it. If Tanaka does find my missing sample, then he’ll have complete control of the CHUM technology. If he also has every scrap of this other material, whatever it is, well…”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. No wonder Nathan’s doing ten shots of tequila every night. Tanaka’s probably furious because if I get ahold of his missing chip, I’d be able to reverse-engineer it and make that weapon.”
She came close to him, fixing serious honey-sunshine eyes on him. “Tell me the truth. Is that what you would do?”
“Of course not.”
“And how much of your interest in all this is about the potential profits?”
He couldn’t blame her for asking these questions, and he owed her the truth. “I’m a businessman, so at the start, almost all of my interest was in maximizing the profits. Almost all, because I also found the CHUM to be magical and fascinating.”
“That’s what caught your attention?”
“Yes. Then I wanted it to make money. But now, I just want to save the world from whatever Tanaka is planning.”
“Save the world,” she repeated slowly.
He nodded, hoping it didn’t sound ridiculous that he thought he could save the world. “I developed the CHUM. I’m the reason Tanaka knows about it, because he keeps such close tabs on me, as the son of his biggest rival. This is my fault. So it’s my responsibility to fix it. That’s where I am now.”
After a long pause, during which she seemed to search the depths of his soul, she murmured, “Just my luck. How’d I get mixed up with a man trying to save the world?
” She took his hand, and he felt a rush of pure relief.
“Come on, then. We’ll drop Eddie off at Marley’s and go look for that good luck charm. ”