Page 28 of Sunburned
He shrugged, lacing his fingers through mine, and I could see the gears turning in his brain. “It’s a lucrative business—”
“No,” I said, giving him the side-eye. “You have too much to lose.”
He elbowed me playfully. “Not all of us can be as brilliant as you.The rest of us have to keep our eyes open if we want to start a multi-billion-dollar company someday.”
“That’s a kind of brilliance too, though, isn’t it?” I said, pushing open the gate. “Thinking in terms of multi-billion-dollar businesses?”
He spun me around so that my back was against the wall and pressed his body into me, running his hands up beneath my shirt. “Talk to me like that, we’re not gonna make it to my bed,” he growled into my ear.
“You like having your ego stroked, don’t you?” I teased.
I was laughing, but I realized as I kissed him just how much truth there was to it. Tyson’s liberal compliments were boomerangs, designed to retrieve praise to inflate his delicate ego. That delicate ego was why he needed to show up his brother at every turn, why he constantly craved credit for his ideas. It was basic psychology: His parents may have given him cash, but they certainly hadn’t given him enough attention, so he sought it elsewhere.
Perhaps that realization should have rung a warning bell somewhere inside me, but as he lifted me and carried me across the pool deck to the covered patio where we tumbled to the couch in the dark, I had other things on my mind.
Chapter 8
Stilettos in hand, I stealthily slipped out the door to my private side deck and through the slatted wooden gate that led to the exterior servants’ quarters. Sticking to the shadows at the edge of the driveway, I scurried down the hill barefoot and let myself out the pedestrian entrance, where I found a dark green vintage Land Rover idling. I peered into the window to make sure Laurent was in the driver’s seat before opening the passenger door and climbing inside.
He was freshly shaved, his curls damp from the shower, and while I was still in the black strapless jumpsuit I’d worn at dinner, he’d changed again, now dressed in a cream linen button-down with the sleeves rolled up, paired with chinos. He looked good enough to eat—which was exactly what I would not be doing tonight, obviously. But it had been years since a man had had any effect on me, much less turned my blood to lava with a glance, and it was a nice reminder that part of me wasn’t totally dead. Of course, it wasn’t just me he had this effect on, I realized. Jennifer clearly had the same response, even with her boyfriend standing right beside her. It must be Laurent’s superpower, melting women.
I smiled to myself as we roared up the hill that led away from LeRêve. “Nice ride,” I commented.
“I inherited it from a client I was close with.” His eyes flicked toward me. “Can I ask why you need to go to Le Ti?”
I hesitated. But I didn’t see how I could keep it from him, with what I was asking of him. “I’m following someone.”
He raised his brows. “For Tyson?”
I nodded. I wanted to qualify it, to explain myself, but aware that whatever I told him he’d likely take straight back to Tyson, I didn’t.
“You know Tyson’s guests at the house pretty well?” I asked.
He shrugged. “As well as you can know anyone, when you are working for them.”
The SUV vibrated beneath us as he slowed, letting a car pass before merging onto the main road. “I would guess they let things slip around you that they might not in front of other people,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Do you think any of them wish Tyson harm?”
He chuckled. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know them, that’s why I’m asking you.”
He cut his eyes briefly toward me. “But you know him.”
“Not really,” I demurred. “Not anymore, I mean. I did. But he’s different now.”
“He was kind to you this evening when you spoke?”
His gaze was fixed on the winding road, and between his accent and the darkness of the car, I couldn’t quite gauge where he was coming from, so I held my tongue, waiting for more information.
“So, no,” he said after a moment.
“No,” I admitted as he turned off the main road to weave down a narrow street that cut through a neighborhood.
“The staff call himla bête noire,” he said. “The black beast.”