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I think of Lori's comfort and rule that out. “I need to be here with my client,” I say, “but thanks, man.” We disconnect, and I walk to Lori’s door and knock.
She opens the door already in her bare feet, her toes painted pink. I grab her and pull her close, whispering in her ear, “Walker is going to check our rooms for bugs when we’re gone. For now, I’m going to do what I can.” I lean back, and her eyes are wide, but she nods and backs into the room.
I start my sweep using the apps I’ve been assigned, and Lori follows me, checking behind me. We come up empty, which isn’t much of a relief since we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. There are no cameras though, at least not in the bathroom. Of that I’m certain. I even checked the shower head.
I glance at my watch. “It’s seven,” I say. “Let’s meet up in an hour to talk through the case before our nine o’clock with Tara.”
“Sounds good,” Lori says, and for reasons I cannot explain, her pink painted toenails are distracting me and I now have a hard on. Fuck, what is it about this woman that her damn pink toes can turn me on?
I motion to the bathroom where I know we’re clear, and we step inside, but for safe measure, I pull her close, my hands on her hips, and I speak near her ear. “Undress and redress in here. Nowhere else.”
“Do you really think we’re being bugged?”
I pull back to look at her. “If they’re watching us, they could be listening to us.” I press my cheek to hers again, my hand sliding up her back to settle between her shoulder blades. “And just so you know,” I say softly, “every moment that you catch me looking at you, I’m thinking about touching you. Most likely, I’m thinking of you lying across my lap, your pretty, naked ass in the air, and how much I want to spank you again.”
She sucks in a breath that I catch with a kiss, before I say, “I’ll see you in an hour,” and exit the bathroom and then the room. I hate fucking leaving her in that room alone. I enter mine, clear the room as I had hers, and then walk to the end of the hallway and call Ashley.
“How are things, boss?”
“Interesting,” I say. “What’s your exact ETA?”
“It could be three weeks. I have to deal with personal matters, but I can manage a part-time load.”
“I won’t argue. As you know, I’m mentoring Lori Havens, a Stanford law student, who I plan to bring on full time with the firm. Call Stanford and find out how the hell I can get Lori her degree in no more than six months.”
“All right. What do I need to know about her?”
“Nothing you don’t ask her yourself when you get your ass back to work, outside of how to get her through law school in six months.”
“Interesting,” she says. “I can’t wait to meet Lori Havens.” I can hear the damn smile on her face. I hang up and walk past Lori’s room to get to mine and I do so with a vow: Six months from now, we will not be hiding. She will have her degree, she will see herself as the equal I already know her to be, and the world will know that she is mine.
Chapter thirty-seven
Cole
Idon’t turn my phone off. That’s simply not an option, but neither is me doing or saying anything in this room worth watching or hearing. I decide I should have turned it off when I’ve barely stepped out of the shower, and Tara sends me a text: Should I just come to your room? “No, you should not just fucking come to my room,” I murmur before I text with: I’ll tell you where to meet me when I’ve acquired a secure location. More soon.
It’s then that I realize there is no place in this hotel that I trust to be secure enough to have a private conversation with my extremely famous client. I dial Royce again. “Is the ex-SEAL I dealt with here in LA still running this office?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Aside from him doing damn good work on the Jerome Knight case, I need him to let me use your local offices here to question Tara Knight.”
“Hell, no, you cannot bring that press bomb to my LA office. I can just see the hell that would unfold, and land me on a plane to LA when I should be right here, in New York City with my newborn child and my wife.”
“Right. Understood. Tara’s here at the hotel for that very reason. Her home is a nightmare of press, but I’m also dealing with an uncontrolled environment.”
“She’ll have security that should be able to clear a room for you to meet,” he says, and then seems to think out loud, “but of course, if I were you, I wouldn’t trust anyone but me. I’ll have Adam, or someone on his team come to you now and clear your room. Get a new room that hasn’t been reserved for you. That lowers the odds of a bug.”
“Will do,” I say. “I’ll text you the details.”
“In the meantime, I’ll get Adam moving.”
“Can you record the session?” I ask.
“Yes.”
We disconnect, and I call the front desk, rent a suite with a living area, arrange entry for Adam, and then text the room number to Royce. Next, I punch in Lori’s number, which goes to voicemail as it should. I told her to turn the damn thing off. I decide to just meet her in the hallway and we’ll go eat breakfast.
