Read On The Rocks for Free Online

veins. He
glanced at her, and then down at the notepad again.
    If Lennox Tate was in Mexico City only two
days ago, then Mexico trumped Monaco as the next destination. The
exhaustion fell away and he pulled out his phone to call Phil.
    “Is he still there?”
    She shook her head. “Killed a brothel owner
and skipped town.” She shifted, curling her feet beneath her and
leaning back into the couch. Slow swallow. Slow inhale. “Missed him
by thirty…forty minutes.”
    Always by minutes.
    Xander muttered a curse and tossed the phone
and notebook onto the mess covering the coffee table. Scrubbed his
hands over his face. He was tired of chasing a ghost.
    In more ways than one.
    Tate was personal. Had it been anyone else
he’d have told them to stay on task, and so he’d better take his
own advice. With effort, he forced his attention back to the matter
at hand. To the pregnant woman willing to put herself at risk for a
reason he couldn’t comprehend.
    “Nai—”
    “I’ll go without you if I have to, luv,” she
cut in, “but I will get my honeymoon.”
    “It can wait.”
    It couldn’t.
    “You’re lying. We both know these things
move fast once the ball gets rolling.” Her eyes were too bright and
watery, and she looked away.
    Shit.
    Just like he’d thought, this wasn’t about
the trip at all. This was much deeper.
    “And even if it can, I can’t.” She
sniffed. Whispered, “I’m so very sick of Paris.”
    “Who gets sick of Paris? City of lights.
Amazing food. Adventure around every turn. All the reasons you told
me you wanted to stay here.”
    “It’s still all those things. But it’s a
dreadful place when you’re lonely.” Her gaze held his. “And bored.
Christ, am I bored…
    “The other day I’m waitin’ in the queue to
see the Mona Lisa for, what, the fiftieth time, right? And it hits
me: Who the fuck cares why she’s smilin’? And why the fuck
am I spendin’ another pence on the sneaky tart? Ain’t like she’s
gonna whisper her secrets in my ear is it?”
    Xander chuckled.
    “You blokes are off ‘avin’ all the fun,
trav’lin the world and I’m here like… Cinderella. Scrubbin’ the
floors and darnin’ socks.” She sighed heavily. “Point is, I worked
hard on this, so I deserve to go to the ball. Dance with the
prince— wait, there was prince in that one, wasn't there?”
    Xander nodded. “You’ve never seen
Cinderella?”
    Naima shook her head. “Seen a bit. Heard
enough about it to get the gist. I grew up on slasher flicks and
horror films. That’s why I don’t like dead bodies. Always expect
them to come back to life… Where was I?”
    “Dance with the prince.”
    “Right. I want to dance with the prince an’
wear the glass slipp’ah.” She leaned forward and snagged a strappy
heel from the open box on the coffee table. “Or at least this one.
Cute, inn’it?”
    Motioning to her belly she said, “Cause
unless it’s a boy, there’ll be no more balls for me after this. Not
for a long, long while.”
    Naima held the pointy heel in her fist and
twirled the shoe around and around the slim axis. “But it’s your
show now, luv. If you say it’s off, it’s off.” She snorted. “Bet
Phil’ll be happy. He wasn’t thrilled about you and I in the first
place, was he?”
    She pushed off the couch and returned the
shoe to the box it had come from. With great care, she folded the
lining paper in on both sides and replaced the lid.
    Then it was on to the clothes. She plucked
up a hanger and shook it so the dress it held fell properly.
Another hanger and she repeated the process, then stacked them side
by side in her dainty hand.
    Xander sighed and shook his head. Phil was
going to give him so much shit for this.
    “Go take a nap,” Xander said, his voice
gruff. He unfolded from the couch and pointed toward the bedroom.
“Go. Phil will be here in thirty.”
    Damn, he didn’t like this, but they really
didn’t have a choice. Well, the choice he wanted had stayed