Page 162 of The Chase
“This isn’t so bad,” I said. “I could do this every morning.” I snuck a peek at his tattooed biceps and ran my fingers over it.
“I’m trying to concentrate here.” He kissed me again, effortlessly holding the tension in his arms.
“Sign me up for more sessions!” I laughed at my cheekiness.
He grinned down at me. “You’re booked and good to go.”
“With you, right?”
“Who else could endure your beauty?” He lowered his body and kissed the end of my nose. “Me, only me.”
I let out the longest sigh of happiness.
It was behind us, all that dreadful Icon stress, all that awkwardness of getting to know each other and trusting in ourselves enough to fall, knowing he’d catch me. All those silent pauses between us were now morphing into moments of a deeper connection. This was the start of something greater than I’d ever dreamed possible for my life.
Falling in love felt so right.
30
Danny gave a wry smile.
I smirked back at him.
Funnily enough, he was the late one to arrive at our private research room at the Witt. “Get your mind out of the gutter,” I said.
“I’m not saying anything.”
“You don’t need to.”
“Personally, I think he’s great. You’re cute together.”
“We are?”
“Shut up.” He laughed.
“I have an idea. Let’s get McDonald’s for lunch.” I winked at him.
“That’s bound to keep my homesickness at bay.”
We laughed and then realized how loud we were being.
Danny pulled back a chair and sat in it. “If they’ve arrested him, do we really need to be here?”
“We’re going to help with providing discovery,” I told him. “The more evidence we have to bring against him, the more paintings we’ll retrieve. He may try to stash a few.”
Danny gave an enthusiastic nod.
We worked diligently all day and were ecstatic to finally confirm the common thread between each of the paintings. The work had been exhausting, but worth it.
By 4:00 p.m. we were back at Huntly Pierre to present what we’d learned.
Within the conference room Abby, Shane and Brandon listened to Danny, and all of them were riveted with what we’d discovered.
Danny gestured for me to continue.
I flipped open my file and began, “We’ve collated images of each painting stolen in the Interpol case.” I continued, methodically walking everyone through where and how each of the provenances had been broken.
Danny’s voice cracked when he came to the Ramirez family, again sharing with the team the suspicious circumstances surrounding the loss of their Titian to the Burells.
