Page 86 of A Prince of Smoke and Mirrors

“I’ll get them for you.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, but she didn’t look up to meet my eyes.

I should not find repressed sexuality arousing, but if I thought about her demure blinks any longer, I was going to have to shove my dick back into my trousers.

I was shrugging my suit jacket on, the silk lining sliding smoothly over the crisp cotton of my clean shirt, and I closed the bathroom door behind me as I crossed the tiny hotel room in a few paces to find Lexi’s gym bag.

One of the security guys, Dushyanta, was staring at Lexi’s wedding dress that was now clipped onto a hanger and hung over the door of the television armoire, scrutinizing it as if he were looking for recording devices.

Her bag was on the rickety metal-pole luggage rack.

As a rule, I didn’t notice brands, whether they were flashy logos for the pretentious classes or a more subtle quality brand, but her ragged gym bag seemed to have a high school name and a rodent silk-screened on the side. I poked around inside, finding the clothes she’d described, and took them back over to the bathroom door to toss them through the door.

Inside, Lexi was sitting on the closed toilet, her hands still firmly affixed to her face.

“Anything amiss?” I asked.

“Still mortified.”

I lowered my voice so the security guys outside might have the option of not hearing. “We will have security around us at all times. It’s a thing to get used to.”

I closed the door and hoped I’d phrased that as not-insultingly as possible.

As I turned, Ueli stood right in front of me. “Tell me what the hell is really going on.”

Ueli had been with me for twelve years at that point, which meant my uncle had picked him out for me before I’d turned eighteen and thus was able to hire my own employees. European labor laws made it difficult to fire him and several of the other men my uncle had surrounded me with.

Ueli was good at his job, but I wasn’t sure what the entirety of his job description was. “I already did. Is the transport here yet?”

He stiffened. “Yes.”

“Then let’s go. She has a vehicle in the hotel parking lot. We’ll need to move it somewhere more secure.”

“And where should we move it to, sir?”

I rubbed my face, wishing I could sand off my thick stubble and throbbing hangover headache with my palm. “The house in Los Angeles is fine. Have it trucked over. There’s an empty garage bay there, right?”

“I think so.”

“If not, move the Cayenne outside until we can reorganize some vehicles. I’ll get you her keys and the license plate number. And she needs to finish eating breakfast before we leave.”

Ueli frowned. “We don’t have time.”

The urge to grab Ueli by the throat swirled up in me, and I turned to him, blandly firm. “I said, Lexi needs to eat.”

He lowered his eyes, angry. “Very well, sir.”

CHAPTER 27

billionaire sanctuary iv

NICOLAI ROMANOV

For another hour,I ran interference between Ueli’s operational efficiency and Lexi’s darting gaze that wrung my heart.

She wasn’t used to being shepherded around because people might try to kill us today.

Maybe we shouldn’t have signed that marriage license.