Page 113 of Eternal Surrender

“I don’t want to. . . do things to you.”

“Really? I’m offended.” He leaned toward me. “She’s in love with you. Are you really going to just stay locked up in here—” He scanned the office. “—with your precious paintings by men long dead and let life pass you by?”

“So what’s next?”

He paused and then said, “I could always visit Cambridge University. Go back to find other students who are still members?”

“Too dangerous.”

“The list you found my name on. I may recognize some of the other names.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Sebastian pulled a Post-it Note from his pocket. “A gentleman by the name of—” He read the note. “—Lucas Azir phoned while you were out. He wants you to call him.” Sebastian handed it to me.

The very Egyptian scholar I had just been thinking about—perhaps he’d sensed me.

Reverently, I studied the scribbled phone number.

Sebastian picked up the mug. “You and Ingrid, you’re both the same.” He gave a knowing nod. “You’re both trying to save the world one person at a time.”

I can’t even save myself.

“There’s something about her that’s haunting,” Sebastian whispered.

I looked up at him and gave a sigh. “Seb, I’m not sure there’s any more room for any more ghosts.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Using the front door had been out of the question.

And yet entering via the bedroom window of James’s flat felt wrong too. The idea of having to engage in small talk with him was mildly annoying, and I was well past trying to come up with a convincing explanation of why I’d come here again at this time of evening.

Sounds from the kitchen carried and a rich aroma of spices filled the apartment. With my supernatural hearing, I picked up the pasta bubbling on the stove as well as the highly seasoned sauce being methodically stirred in another pan; a rich Cabernet was currently being enjoyed.

Ingrid strolled into the bedroom carrying a long stemmed wine glass. She looked quietly irresistible—relaxing in black pajamas that clung just enough, understated, yet undeniably, sexy.

Taking a sip as she walked, she suddenly saw me and halted, the burgundy liquid swooshing, threatening to spill.

Quickly, she closed the door behind her and said, “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t have your number.”

“I work at Scotland Yard, you could have phoned me there.” She placed her glass down on the Elmwood chest of drawers.

She drifted closer, so close our breath mingled, so close our mouths hovered in the brink of collision. The air between us crackled, charged with heat and need. I felt her awareness of my own arousal just as I was aware of hers, a subtle sense of her pulse rising.

Every sense narrowed to that single, rare moment between us back in the swimming pool. A memory, intimate, and yet exquisitely fragile, and I remembered the way I slipped into her gravity, the way she opened up to me, the way I carried her to that breathless space where the world dissolved.

“I’m waiting,” she whispered seductively.

“I’ve arranged the meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“With my friend, the Egyptologist. He’s deciphering your parchment.”

“You needed to tell me that now?”