Graham groaned. "Sweetheart, if you keep feeding them like this, then they’ll never leave."
I turned around in his arms and hooked my own around his neck. "For my sake, I need to do this."
This time Graham sighed. "Okay, but where did you learn to make all of this?"
"The internet is a beautiful thing. Andrew let me use his tablet, but speaking of electronics, I'm going to need a phone atsome point since I'm pretty sure mine is sinking to the bottom of the ocean."
It had been in my purse on the plane, and since my purse never made it off with me, I think it was safe to say that neither did my phone.
"I've already ordered you one. It should be here today."
I tilted my head and smiled at him. "You really know how to spoil a girl, don't you?"
Graham's response was to shake his head no. "I don't consider basic necessities as spoiling."
"They are when you're used to the bare minimum. Foster care taught me that." The look in his eyes was pretty close to pity and I never wanted him to look at me that way. "Don't you dare."
"What?"
"Don't look at me like you pity me. I don't need or want that. Yes, life was hard, but I was fine before I met you. Not fulfilled, but fine."
He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, something I found he did often when he wanted my attention. "You deserve to have more than just fine. You deserve the world, and I plan on giving it to you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Graham
It killed me to know that before I met her, Sarah was merely just getting through life. A woman like her deserved to be pampered and adored. If I had any say in it, that was exactly what would happen.
Before I could say as much, Matthew was hollering for me from where my team was huddled in the living room going over what we knew so far.
"I better get back to work."
"Okay." She leaned forward and kissed me. Nothing overly sexual. More just a quick brush of the lips but it still required me to fix myself before I could go back to my friends so I wasn't sporting a boner in front of them.
"We should have all our team meetings at your place if this is the kind of hospitality we're going to get."
I kicked Rhett on my way past for his comment. "Don't get used to it."
I didn't want Sarah to overhear and think she needed to cook every time the guys came over to discuss something.
"What did I miss?" I sat down on the ottoman and asked Matthew.
"I got a text from Vortex. They’re digging into who owns the ship but so far no luck. It's been passed around quite a lot the last few years."
"Fucking pirates," I cursed. "It was probably won in some damn card game." I wished I could say I was joking but it was common for thieves and scoundrels to bet anything they could when gambling. Half of the shit we saw in our line of work was because of people like that.
"That's pretty much what B.T. said."
B.T., aka Big Trouble, was the team leader for Vortex. No one besides Black knew his real name and that was the way the man preferred it.
"So that's a dead end," I said in frustration.
"Well, not exactly. We know whoever either owns the boat or was in charge of your kidnapping killed everyone that was associated with it. Most likely to tie up loose ends, which means we’re dealing with only one person," Matthew explained. "We also suspect that in some way Charmaine is involved. She said as much without actually telling us, so there's that."
The last person I wanted to think about was my bitch of an ex-wife but Matthew was correct. She was involved in some way. It was just a matter of finding out how. Not something that would be easy unless torture was involved. If there was one thing Charmaine knew how to do, it was keeping her mouth shut when she needed to protect herself.
"Did Black send someone to guard her? Maybe they can get some information out of her."
