“Yeah.” She said and she watched him get up and walk inside as she stretched up her arms in the air, stretching out the fatigue, stretching out the stress too.

Cole Black watched from the surveillance room, Brandon beside him. The footage wasn’t great, their agent was clearly sat diagonally across from her and people kept walking past obscuring the view.

“She’s picked a stupid place for a rendezvous, it’s easy to blend in there, look at all the tourists.” Brandon muttered.

“What is she doing?” Cole wondered out loud and he leant against the barrier that partitioned their walkway off from the team working below.

“We had a team collect the bags.” Brandon said.

“What was in them?” Cole asked.

“Clothes.”

“What?” He said confused.

“A second team got the one she dumped at the service station.” Brandon stated.

“Tell me there was something we can use in that.”

“Unless you want to sniff her underwear…” Brandon replied with a smirk and Cole narrowed his eyes.

“What?” Cole snapped.

“It was filled with it, all her underwear from the apartment.” Brandon said

“Why?” Cole asked not really expecting an answer but looking back at the screen, back at the girl sat now sipping a coffee and talking to a man that no one even knew existed only hours ago. What was their connection?

He could see them laughing. Talking. Almost reminiscing. Was this one of her lovers, he wondered and he felt something almost like a jolt of jealousy then and he gritted his teeth because he didn’t get jealous ever. He didn’t have a reason too because he was hands down stronger, faster, richer, you name it better than every other man out there.

Besides he had no reason to be jealous of who she was fucking, what did he care, he thought. Sure the girl was hot, but that didn’t mean anything, there were plenty of hot girls out there, plenty of girls that would happily cream themselves with just one look from him he didn’t need Maddie Cooper to be one of them. He didn’t need anything from this girl except to figure out what the fuck she was playing at.

“Get closer. I want to hear what they’re saying.” Brandon ordered and Cole nodded.

He saw the camera move as the man wearing it approached and grabbed a table right next to them. Let’s see how good this girl is now, Cole thought with a smirk. His agents were right there, touching distance from her and she seemed oblivious.

Maddie took a sip of her coffee. It was getting cold already. It was the one annoying thing with being outside but she didn’t want to go in because then she’d be tied down, cornered, not that she was expecting anything to happen but still.

A man took the table next to them and a couple with a small scotty dog took the one across. It yapped loudly and she saw her brother roll his eyes.

“I thought you liked dogs.” She said.

“They’re like kids, I like well-behaved ones.” He replied.

“Right so what’s your excuse for your own then?” Maddie asked.

“What?”

“Rupert is a shit.” She said smirking and thinking of the last time she’d met her nephew and he’d started smashing all the plates because they wouldn’t give him ice cream.

“You were a shit when you were his age.” Richard replied.

“How would you know?” She asked and he shook his head.

“And Katy is an angel.” Richard added.

She laughed then. “Katy has you wrapped round her little finger. Just wait till she turns into a teenager, you’ll see exactly what sort of angel she is then.”

“Not a chance. That girl is getting shipped to a nunnery the day she gets her first period.” He said and she scowled.

“Nice. Real nice.”

“Didn’t like that huh?” He said smirking and shook her head. She forgot what an arse he could be sometimes.

“Where are they anyway?” She asked.

“At home, Rupert’s got a stomach bug and he hasn’t stopped puking all night.” He stated.

“So you left your wife to deal with it alone?”