Page 40 of Stealing the Star Stone
“Xander,” the man said, a telltale pink splashing across his cheeks.“I’ll take it from here,” he said to Frederik.
“We’ll be fine,” Eli said to the burly bodyguard and followed Xander into the lab.“Thorne didn’t mention you.How long have you worked for Lord Orien?”He flicked his hair aside, wishing he’d taken the time to brush it.“Sorry, I’m a mess.”
“Not at all,” Xander said, catching Eli’s hand to guide him to stand before a strange panel.
Frederik stood guard at the door, his arms folded across his chest.A ferocious scowl contorted his features.Eli tossed him a glare.
“Do I need to strip?”he asked, casting a glance between Frederik and Xander as if nervous.“He’s seen me naked too many times.”He hitched a thumb at Frederik.
The man scoffed and offered his back, making it clear he wasn’t leaving.
Fuck.With a resigned sigh, Eli let the opportunity pass him by.Convincing the young man to forsake his future couldn’t be done under Frederik’s steady judgment.Eli needed privacy, in case his vast experience made not a lick of difference in Nova’s body.
Chapter Twelve
Laurus Research Vessel
Gaining an unexpected ally.Without pimping.
Day Two.
Novadidn’tthinkOrien’sarcheology team knew what they were doing.Her right hand stung from yet another round of pinpricks.Again, they took samples of her hair and skin.What they’d done with the others, she couldn’t say.Burned them?She wouldn’t put it past them to perform some sort of pagan ritual.
With a cup of tea in hand, she sat on the cabin’s floor, a scruffy notebook between her thighs.It took a moment for her eyes to decipher the scrawl, then she was off, paging through it.Rough galaxy maps were barely recognizable, but she got the general idea.Like she’d guessed, the moon Lethara was in the Kegawa Belt, except, it had been discovered two decades ago.No wonder Orien’s stone was such a big hit.His funding must have dried up, and finding anything worthwhile meant renewed investments.And the ass was greedy as all hell.Thorne had donated a fortune, so he’d said, and yet, Orien wanted more.Seemed to her that having a lordship didn’t come with generational wealth.Or maybe, he’d squandered that already.
The moon was labeled as GJ 172 A e.Sir Allan Teher had named it Lethara when he’d met the first inhabitant.She flipped from page to page, studying the scribbles.
When she snapped it shut, she sat there, her mind reeling.
One, they knew nothing about the artefact, other than the humming.So, what did they hope to learn from these tests?She was starting to suspect it was nothing more than an excuse to punish them for destroying the stone.
Two, why had Frederik given them these books?Was it at Orien’s instruction, who’d, no doubt, be laughing in his brandy?Or had Frederik done it on the sly, having a hidden agenda?
She scowled into her cold tea.Not knowing bothered her.She’d have liked some descriptors about the moon, too.Was it a jungle, a desert, a water world?She had to assume it had breathable air.Hell, a photo would’ve gone a long way in calming her fears.
Eli glided in like a model in those heels.He waved a fist at the shut door, muttering curses she couldn’t quite catch.“Cock blocked.”Then maybe, “Neanderthal.”
“What is it?”she asked, trailing him with her gaze when he sank onto the nearest couch.
“Xander Payne, remember him?”He arched a brow, then leaped to his feet to grab a bottle of water.“Cute young man we could’ve swayed to our side if the mountain hadn’t watched me every second.”
Ah, a failed seduction.Good.
Gripping his bottle, he stopped behind her, peering at the spread out books.“Anything interesting?”
She tossed a journal aside and chose another.“Rough idea where this Lethara is.That’s a start.”
“It is.”He sat beside her, removing the heels.“Hand me a book.”
She did, and the scrape of pages turning filled the silence between them.
“Mm, this writing… It’s like your tattoo.”He ran his fingers across the letters scratched onto a page.
“It does,” she said, leaning in to study the delicate, almost romantic alphabet—a mixture between Mayan and cuneiform.How did he know?She froze, her head whipped to the right, bringing her lips so close to his.“You looked.”
“Of course I did.”He dipped his gaze to his cleavage.“Woman, your body’s a work of art.”
Her face flushed, the compliment making her heart twinge.She nibbled on her bottom lip.Had he remembered that one night she’d been such a naïve groupie?“When?”
