I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. I suppose I did, didn’t I?”
She nodded, and wet her lips, picking up another chip between her fingers.
“I walked away from my job. I have nowhere to stay if you kick me out. Nothing’s coming to me from Sutherland’s will, even if he is ruled dead without a body showing up. I’m not a strong enough fighter to go on the circuit, and that’s off the table now they’re out looking for me.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you really do. I was geared up for some kind of legal battle. I was prepared to go to prison for ending him.”
“You going to prison would have been a waste, sweetheart. You’ve got far too much talent for that. It wouldn’t be best cultivated in the women’s prisons.”
“So what am I supposed to do, Max? You’ve waltzed in and turned everything upside down. What happens when we’re doing tracking down treasure clues and you’re onto the next job?”
“You work with me. I get you on the books, bringing in your own money. You’d be… a kind of apprentice.”
Elizabeth’s finger trailed slowly down the condensation on the side of her glass. From the way the fight in her stalled, I didn’t think she’d been expecting that. “An apprentice?”
I nodded. “Teach you what I know. I think you’ve got natural flare.”
“For… killing?”
I grimaced slightly, glancing over my shoulder to check no one was within listening distance and I cleared my throat. “Liz, we don’t talk about things like that.”
She tilted her head. “I’m terribly sorry, Maxim, what am I supposed to say?”
“It’s called wet work.”
“Wet work. Okay. You think I have a talent for wet work?”
My brows forged together. “I think you could have. I think it’s not something to get into lightly. But you wouldn’t have to, if you didn’t want to. I have a reputation as a very serious man. It’s enough to cover both of us. A team is always more effective than an individual when it comes to reconnaissance, and the information trade. I could use you. Wire you up. Get you close to people.”
“A honey trap.”
I see-sawed my head. I could tell she wasn’t thrilled about the idea. “You’d be good at it. But no, you’d be more than that. They’d be your leads as much as mine. We’d bring everything in together.”
“So, you’re going to teach me to be a spy?”
I gritted my teeth again, sparing another look across the restaurant floor. “Darling, please.”
She rolled her eyes. “Nobody here is going to think you’re serious. We’re drinking champagne and eating over-priced fish chips in the middle of the day like we have nowhere to be but right here with each other. We don’t look like we’re up to no good, except when you keep looking shifty.”
She had a point. I should have realised as much myself, except when it came to her I was on hyper alert.
“Then yes, I plan to teach you to be a spy.”
Her smile warmed her entire face and she took a long swig of her £250 champagne. “I knew there was a reason I liked you.”
“Just the one?”
“Hmm maybe more than one.”
She reached across the table, and hooked a finger into the collar of my shirt. I let her pull me towards her across the table and kissed her solidly enough to give her something to think about. It was certainly going to be on my mind all day, until we got somewhere with some more privacy.
She let out a sigh against my lips as she let me go. “You really want to do this?”
“I definitely want to do this. I think I’m the one who should be asking you that. I am the guy who’s been stalking you for the past month.”
Her eyes glowed and she bit her lip, looking down at the table, as though maybe she had some bashfulness somewhere in her. I knew for a fact that wasn’t true.
“You do make a very good stalker. I wouldn’t have wanted to be stalked by anybody else.”
“I should damn well hope not.”
CHAPTER 22
Elizabeth
Left to my own devices for the morning with the credit card Maxim had left behind in my possession, I took it upon myself to make a trip to Sloane Square.
I didn’t even have underwear, let alone workout gear. Shopping was a necessary evil, given he’d set fire to my house. I couldn’t borrow Maxim’s t-shirts forever. As appealing as that thought was, on a certain level.
Cassie would have beaten me around the head to get some sense back into me if she knew I was even vaguely considering a future existing mostly naked, in and out of his bedroom.
But no one was going to take me seriously in my own right if I permanently looked like I’d crawled out of his bed. I wasn’t some kind of crack whore, and he wasn’t some kind of pimp. I wanted people to see us together, side by side, and think that we made sense.