Page 63 of Wicked Ambition

He’d turned off the disco ball.

Oz looked up when she returned. “I tested out one of the chairs. The thing tipped forward and I narrowly avoided landing on the floor. You better sit on the bed, where it’s safe.”

“You’re sure it’s safe?” Ayla eyed the faux fur suspiciously.

“I checked for bedbugs. There were no signs of any, but yeah, let’s get that mess off the bed.” Without waiting for her to help him, Oz folded it up and pitched it on the ledge of one of the hot tubs. “The air conditioning doesn’t run cold enough for us to need it, anyway.”

That’s when it registered that they’d be sharing a bed again tonight. A thrill of anticipation winged through her, and Ayla pushed it aside. Instead of sitting down—the car ride had lasted a while—she stayed on her feet. “Can I go back to my own hair? Now that they’ve seen me as a brunette, they’ll know to look beyond hair color.”

His sigh was barely audible, but the grimace that accompanied it spoke volumes. Scowling, she planted her hands on her hips. She was tired of that damn hair hat and if the mobsters knew she was wearing a wig anyway, why bother?

“Stand down, Ayla. We have more than one problem. Whether you wear a wig is only a small part of what we’re dealing with.”

“What does that mean?”

Oz closed the gap between them, not stopping until he stood an arm’s length away from her. “It means you were identified yesterday because of me. It doesn’t matter if we put you in a purple wig and a glitter minidress. As long as I’m with you, they’ll know who you are.”

Ayla felt her heart stop. Was Oz telling her he was leaving her on her own? It only took a split second to reject that idea. He’d never let her handle this alone, but was he going to pass her off to one of his friends? Teammates. They were a Green Beret team. Not a group of friends. She didn’t want Baggs or Kyle or one of the other men assigned to work with her.

She trustedOz.

“What if you got a haircut and shaved?”

“I only had light stubble when I brought you to the hotel that day. Remember?”

“What if you changed your clothes? Maybe a nice suit? That could be your disguise.” Ayla could hear the note of panic in her voice.

So could he. “Relax,” Oz said, lightly taking hold of her shoulders. “I’m not abandoning you. I promised to keep you and our baby safe, remember?”

Ayla nodded. “I didn’t think you’d leave me on my own. My guess was that you would hand me off to Baggs or someone.”

“Not happening.” Oz tugged her against him and wrapped his arms around her. Ayla hugged him back, taking comfort in his warmth, in the size and strength of his body. “I trust my friends, but I also know how far I’m willing to go to keep you secure.”

She didn’t need to ask. Every time she woke up last night, Oz was sitting in the chair, facing the door of their room, gun inhand, alert and ready to do whatever it took to defend her. She’d been able to rest because of his vigilance. “What are we going to do then if we’re both easily recognizable?”

Oz stepped back, took her hand, and said, “Come on. Let’s sit down and talk about things.” He led her over to the foot of the bed, waited until she sat, and then settled beside her. “You said your connection to your sister is affected by proximity. You told me you two ran a bunch of tests when you were teenagers. Did you figure out how to tell the general distance from the strength of the link?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in twin telepathy?” Ayla couldn’t keep the suspicion out of her voice. Oz had made his feelings on the topic clear. Was he trying to humor her?

Taking her hand and lacing their fingers, he said, “I’m not sure what I believe, but I can’t send you home. Disguising both of us is an iffy proposition. That leaves finding your sister as the best option to end this mess. I’ll take any lead I can get at this point.”

That made sense. “It’s not an exact science, and I don’t know how Io being drugged affected it. The other thing I’ve been questioning is how fear is playing a factor in the connection. I picked her up when I was still in LA.” Ayla shrugged. “We’ve never been able to manage even half that distance before. She’s terrified, and Io does not scare easily. That might be turbocharging our link.”

“So what you’re telling me is we have nothing we didn’t already know.”

Ayla couldn’t read his tone. “No, I’m not telling you that. What I saw of the room Io was locked in was expensive. The furniture, the bedding, the curtains—everything was high end. Even the lattice over the window was fine-quality wood and it was built into a window casing. Nothing was haphazard or shoddy.”

Oz’s hand briefly tightened over hers. “The expensive haciendas are on the north side of Trujillo, in the foothills of the mountains where it’s cooler. Both times you made contact with your twin, we were south of the city.”

“There’s nothing on the south side that fits?”

He frowned. “It’s hard to imagine a smaller home in the rainforest having the kind of interior you described. Something like that almost has to be north.”

“If the connection is stronger than usual…” she let her voice trail off.

“If.That’s a big word to base a search on.”

“I know. We could waste time canvassing the wrong side of town, and the longer this drags out, the greater the risk to my sister. Are you actually considering using my link to Io? Something you don’t believe in?”

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