Page 66 of Happily Ever After

Flicka stood in the cold, still shivering, and her feet were sore in her high heels. Dark clouds obscured the stars in the night sky as she peered up between the tightly fit buildings.

Raphael held up a finger for silence as they stood in the shadows of a closed cafe and department store, and he tapped his phone screen. He didn’t say anything, but Flicka could hear the man on the other end of the line speaking. “Someone has the hotel surrounded, and they’re talking about tracing your phone. Get rid of it, and don’t come here.”

“We need the car.”

“They’re watching us.”

“Losethem. Meet me at rendezvous two in half an hour.”

“There are a lot of them.”

“You can lose them. I need the car.”

Raphael dropped the phone to the ground and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. He kicked it into the gutter. “Dammit. Julien must have spilled everything.”

God, no.Phones were liberty and safety to Flicka, now. She should have called everyone she knew before he’d smashed it,but if she had, the Monegasque Secret Service probably would have traced their location.

Flicka sucked in air as she huddled closer to him. “If we could find a phone, I could call Wulf. He would help us.”

“He’s probably still on the plane. I don’t think he could get cellular reception over the Atlantic Ocean. He couldn’t turn the plane around mid-flight, anyway.”

“I think I might have causeda problem with him. I might have slipped and said something about your name.”

“Yeah, well, he was going to figure it out at some point, probably soon. He had my living trust with Alina’s guardianship in order to get her away from Pierre, along with her passport and birth certificate. All he had to do was open that manila envelope.”

“He did. He saw the names.”

“I thought as much. He knew everything.”

“I’m sorry I slipped.”

He pulled her farther into an alleyway. Darkness filled the small passage between the brick buildings. Cars rolled by on the street outside, but their headlights didn’t penetrate this little alcove away from the street.

No one could see them back there.

No one at all.

Flicka grabbed Raphael’s shirt and pulled him closer.

He wrapped his burly arms around her, and herubbed her arm over his Roman-collared shirt that she still wore. “Are you cold? I can find a coat for you, somehow. We should have kept that cassock, but we could run faster without it. It was too noticeable. People would have remembered it when we were running, and the Secret Service might have followed us more easily.”

She said, “I’m not cold.”

Flicka ran her lips lightly up his throat, whichwas easy because he was wearing only a black tee shirt. It left the strong sinews of his neck and shoulder bare. Under her lips, his neck was still smooth, unstubbled, but the soft beard hairs on his jaw tickled her cheek. She nipped at his ear, just a little. The faintest whiff of his cologne—warm spices and musk—lingered on his skin.

He chuckled, a rumble under her mouth, and he whispered,“Jesus, Flicka. You do have a thing for adrenaline, don’t you?”

“Evidently.”

His hand stroked up her hip to her breast, cupping the heaviness there. He crowded her back against the rough wall in the chilly alley. “I think I do, too.”

Flicka let her head drop back against the bricks. The sharp edges caught the ringlets and bun back there, and Raphael held her chin with his other hand, tracingher lower lip with his thumb.

The scents of gunpowder and steel lingered on his fingers. His thumb rubbing her lip felt like he was kissing her, and yet frustration rose up becausehe wasn’t kissing her.He was arousing her and denying her at the same time.

Unfair.

He’d always been such a damn tease.