Page 16 of Only the Wicked

The request surprises me—most successful men I’ve encountered love talking about their achievements. “That’s not strange at all. What would you rather talk about?”

“Anything else.” His gaze rises skyward and his eyelashes flutter closed. For a man, he has noticeably long, thick eyelashes. When he opens his eyes, there’s an earnestness I didn’t pick up on before. “I haven’t taken a vacation in years. Real vacation, where I’m not checking emails or thinking about quarterly projections or…” He trails off, then refocuses on me with renewed intensity.

“That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.” He steps closer, and I catch a hint of his cologne—something woody and expensive. “I need this. A night out with an adventurous, stubborn—” He looks at me with a pointed grin. “—kindred spirit.”

“Kindred?” I raise an eyebrow. “We just met.”

“Did we?” His voice drops lower, more intimate. “Can we just…for tonight, pretend we’re going to spend forever right here? No past, no future obligations. Just this.”

Chapter

Five

Sydney

I’m still processing Rhodes’ words—pretend we’re going to spend forever right here—when the hostess leads us through the warm glow of On the Veranda. His request lingers between us, creating an intimacy that makes even this simple walk to our table feel charged.

“Right this way,” the hostess says, leading us to a table in the center of the restaurant.

Booths line the walls, offering more privacy, and Rhodes points to an empty spot at the back of the restaurant.

“Can we take one of those?”

“Those are reserved,” the hostess answers with distracted ambivalence. The young girl in a flowered romper and clogs can’t be over seventeen.

“Can you check? Or may I speak to your manager?”

The romantic spell broken, I give the hostess an understanding smile, grateful for the distraction. His flirty request caught me off guard, but now I’m grounded again, focused.

If this were an actual date, I’d intervene and insist the table is fine. Given I’m uncertain how a CEO like Rhodes would react to someone questioning his viewpoint, even on something as mundane as table selection, I clasp my hands together, politely observing.

“He’s over there,” the hostess says, pointing at a middle-aged man with a plaid shirt, dark jeans, and pointed dress shoes. There’s something about him, maybe the high waist of his jeans or the tapered hem, or those pointy, shiny leather shoes, that makes me suspect he’s European.

H-1 Visas are popular with hotels throughout the Highlands, according to the bartender at the pool this afternoon, a college-aged guy from Australia, but while the Aussie works in the Highlands, he lives in Georgia in a more affordable area that’s commuting distance.

Rhodes heads in the manager’s direction. There’s something deliberate about the way Rhodes approaches this—not entitled, exactly, but confident he’ll get what he wants.

It’s chilly in the restaurant, so I put the gifted cardigan on and mouth, “I’m sorry,” to the girl.

She shrugs and responds loud enough that the man and woman sitting at a nearby table hear her say, “I only have two more weeks here. I don’t care.”

Rhodes and her boss shake hands, chat, and a minute later, Rhodes follows the restaurant manager to the booth he requested. He hangs his jacket on a hook on the booth’s post, and I slide onto the bench closest to his coat.

He bends, and says in my ear, “I’ll be right back.”

I watch him as he retreats to the restroom, and only then do I allow myself to breathe. His request outside—to pretend we could spend forever here—is exactly the kind of thing that makes this job challenging. Objectivity is a requirement.

My gaze falls to his overcoat hanging on the booth’s post, the slim phone visible in the gaping pocket. This is why I’m here. Not for romantic fantasies, but for this—the intelligence that will either clear him or gather enough evidence to ensure that no one can halt an official investigation. I scan the room methodically. The gray-haired woman entering the restroom hallway. The group approaching the hostess stand. The hunched man exiting the restrooms. No direct eyes on me.

I retrieve the phone with practiced efficiency, my hands steady despite the adrenaline.

This is almost too easy.

He uses an iPhone, which is difficult to hack. I set my iPhone next to it, exchange contact information, which he’ll see, but that’s easily explainable. Pushy and bad date etiquette, but my goal isn’t marriage. Then I pull out a custom device Quinn provided. I set it over the phone and wait for the small button to flash green. Part of me hopes we’ll find nothing incriminating.

The woman with gray hair and a long, swishy skirt exits the restroom hallway. At the front of the restaurant, a group of four middle-aged women enter and approach the hostess stand. An older man in a plaid short-sleeve shirt on the opposite side of the restaurant walks toward the restroom.