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Frederick’s shoulders heaved. Up and down. Up and down. The bastard looked like he was choking down vomit.

Hugo waited, barely keeping his disgust in check. Instead of helping track Simone, Frederick had been drinking his ass off all day long.

Some people…they just could not handle their alcohol. They also could not handle dead bodies. Or the violence that was necessary to succeed in this world.

Frederick’s hand swiped over his face. Wiping away a bit of vomit that had slid onto his chin?

“Proceed…How to proceed…” A whisper from Frederick. Then he nodded. “I’m getting my arse to London.”

“Excellent idea. Maybe plan to head out at first light tomorrow? After you’ve had a chance to rest?” After you’ve sobered up?

Frederick swayed.

“What about Simone Sailor?” Hugo really needed an answer on this situation. “What do you want done with her?”

“I want her dead.”

Hugo nodded. “Pretty sure we can make that happen. In fact, we can do that right now.”

Chapter Thirteen

She’d miscalculated. She’d also fallen asleep.

Simone’s eyes flew open, and she jerked upright. She had not meant to sleep. She had certainly not meant to fall asleep in Ryan’s bed, of all places. But the man had given her the best two orgasms of her life and she’d been all blissed out and sated, so closing her eyes for a moment had not seemed like the worst crime in the universe.

She’d miscalculated.

Sex with him had seemed…harmless enough. Harmless. What a ridiculous word to describe anything related to Ryan Quinn. But, at the time, she’d thought, why not? Why not have sex with him and get this mad, driving need out of her system? Why not treat herself to one fabulous time after the nightmare she’d experienced?

Why not find out how good it could be with him, before she vanished from his life without a trace?

Because she would vanish. It was just a matter of time before she had to schedule her big, disappearing act. And it had seemed like such a waste to disappear without finding out just how good she and Ryan could be together.

Spoiler alert, he was very, very good.

So good that she’d come twice. That her whole body had surged and hungrily followed his every command. So good that she could swear she still felt him, inside of her.

But unease trickled through her veins and the afterglow was definitely fading because not only was Ryan not in the bed with her…he wasn’t in the bedroom at all.

Miscalculated. She’d been blissed out on the fabulous sex and he’d…he’d…

Ryan opened the bedroom door. He walked in, wearing his black dress pants and seemingly nothing else. Appearing sexy and rumpled with his tousled hair and the tattoos that she’d wanted to lick—but had not been given the opportunity to do so—looking so badass on his skin. But then Ryan lifted his right hand, and she saw that he was holding the broach and the earrings. Her broach and earrings.

Jaw locking, he stared straight at her. “I think it’s time we talked about these, don’t you?”

Simone said the first thing that came to mind, even as unexpected betrayal and pain knifed through her. “You bastard.”

Ryan blinked.

She glared. She also jumped out of bed, naked, and fought the rage that swelled inside of her. “How dare you go through my things!” Then, because she could not have this conversation—correction, argument, fight, whatever—while she was waving her breasts at him, Simone yanked a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her body. She secured it between her previously waving breasts and stormed toward him. “How. Dare. You.”

He blinked again. “I went in your room in order to get a change of clothes for you. Thought I was being kind because I’d broken the button on your pants.”

He’d broken the button? She did not remember that event occurring. Then again, she barely remembered him stripping off her pants. Heat of the moment and all that.

“How was I supposed to know you’d hidden these items inside the pocket of your new black pants? They fell out when I lifted the pants out of the suitcase that Jezebel brought over for you.”

Imperiously, she held out one hand. “Well, now that you have found my items, how about returning them?” Simone wiggled her fingers.