Her smile fades, and she looks off to the side with something approaching sadness. “Dad tried to keep most of it from me, but I know that when they found Layla, it was obvious that she had been tortured before they killed her. Cigar burns. Cuts. Bruises. I don’t even want to know what else. I can only imagine what they’re doing to Lucinda right now—if she’s even still alive.”
Watching Leira shudder sends a wave of anger through me. Suddenly I find myself entertaining a new crusade once I’m done with my father this summer.
“So, with Lucinda most likely…”
“Dead. You can say it.”
“Dead. You are the next in line to take over your father’s company?”
Her mouth hitches into a halfhearted smile, and she shrugs. “He seems to think so.”
I lean back in my chair to assess her. “But you don’t want to?”
“What else am I going to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
She exhales a short laugh. “I’d have to see something of the outside world to know. Everything about my life has been that damn house in Hollywood, the Church, or Catholic school.”
“You could join me. My team could use someone like you,” I say with a smirk.
“You and your merry band of thieves,” she says, laughing.
“Don’t knock it. It’s quite lucrative, and we certainly see something of the world.”
There’s a sparkle in her eyes that tells me, even though we’re both joking, it’s something she could very easily entertain. There’s a small flicker as something suddenly occurs to her.
“These people who are after us. What about them? What are we going to do about it?”
It’s something I’ve been mulling over, and I’ve come to a conclusion. But I’d rather not worry her with it. We both need our rest once again.
“I need time to think about it. Speaking of which, we should go to bed. We’ll need our wits and energy come morning.”
“Are we taking turns again?”
I shake my head, no. “They won’t try anything tonight. Nighttime is when this island is most alive.”
She’s halfway to believing that, so I add, “I’m a light sleeper. It will be fine.”
“Okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight Leira
“That’s all you’re wearing to bed?” I ask.
We’re out of the hotel robes we wore to dinner, and all Enrique has put on are his black underwear. I at least have the decency to wear his button-up shirt over my panties, even if I did leave the bra hanging in the bathroom.
He raises one eyebrow and scans me as I kneel on the bed. “If you think you’re any less distracting, you’re sorely mistaken.
I inadvertently bring my hand up to fidget with my cross, my mind racing back to what he did to me earlier on the couch. That was one line crossed, a line that I have no business going anywhere near again.
Especially this late at night.
Under the covers.
When all he’s wearing is…that?
“I wasn’t thinking about distraction.” Though, now that he puts his hands on his hips to stare down at me, I’m pretty fucking distracted. “I was talking about…I wanted to make sure that we are just sleeping.”
He laughs. His perfectly flab-free muscles just roll in waves underneath his tanned skin. He catches me and tilts his head to smirk. “Is it me or you that you are worried about?”
“Whatever,” I spit, tugging the bedspread away to slip underneath. Neither of us disturbed it during our earlier naps, and I have to tug even harder to pull the sheets out of whatever impossible vice grip the cleaning staff tucked them into before our arrival.
Enrique laughs again and tugs at his side of the spread.
“You’re getting under the covers with me?”
He gives me a look that’s slightly exasperated. “That is how people usually sleep.”
“I think it would be more prudent for you to sleep on top of the covers. That way…”
“That way what?” he asks with a grin.
“That way...” I exhale in frustration. “Don’t you think that would be the nice thing for you to do?”
“Were you under the mistaken impression I’m a gentleman?”
I feel my mouth tighten in irritation. “Fine. I’ll sleep on top of the covers.”
I flip the covers so hard they hit him in the face, but all he does is laugh.
“Are you worried my penis might accidentally slip into your vagina in the middle of the night? Because that’s not how it works.”
I grab the covers back to smooth down before getting on top of them. “Thank you for the sex-ed. I had no clue how male and female anatomy worked.”
“Are you sure? Because you seem awfully convinced something might happen?” He pushes the covers down so that he’s exposed down to the waistband of his underwear, and then he leans on one crooked arm, flashing me a fuck-me grin like one of those dancers from Magic Mike.
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Ah,” he says, allowing his eyes to scan my legs as I unfold them from beneath me to lie down. “You know what? I think I’ve changed my mind. I prefer on top of the covers too.”
I sit back up in a flash. “Are you just trying to be an asshole?”
He throws off the covers, hitting me in the face with them as I did him. Except I don’t laugh. I snatch it away from my face to seethe at him.
Enrique pays absolutely no attention as he likewise smoothes the covers down to lie on top of them, his hands calmly folded over those six-pack abs.
Definitely distracting.
“Fine.” I jump off the bed and grab hold of the covers. Before I can once again throw them in his face, he also jumps off the bed to grab his side.
“We can go all night, Leira.”
“If I wasn’t worried before, then I certainly am now. Why are you so insistent on this?”
“Because you’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to try anything, trust me. Like I said, when I take you, you’ll not only be willing, but begging for it.”
I sneer at that renewed suggestion.
Enrique laughs.
