Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(45)

“Sasha is much more qualified to keep herself safe than I am to protect her.” Much as he hated to admit it.

“I’m aware of that. I need her to keep you safe. And if you’re with her, I won’t question if she’s going off playing vigilante. She has no problem putting herself in danger, but I’ve yet to see her put anyone else in the crossfire. The bonus is if Pohl tries to put her in a place and a crime that you can say she wasn’t in . . . even better.”

AJ glanced toward the closed bedroom door. “Vigilante?”

Neil paused. “She’s had a hard life. Now that she’s trying to find her place, someone is trying to take that from her. She won’t go down without a fight.”

“How can you be so sure?”

His eyes glazed over, as if lost in thought. “Because she and I are a lot alike. Now, you take that one, I’ll see this one is taken care of until this is over,” he said, nodding toward the teenager.

AJ blew out a breath, stood. “What makes you think I have any influence over her?”

Was that a laugh? Yeah, Neil just laughed . . . something AJ had yet to see. “You’re here, aren’t you?”



She knew she should have locked the door.

Sasha had kicked her shoes off and lain out on the queen bed. She’d been watching the clouds when they allowed the ocean below them to peek through. Now that they had clustered together, she had closed her eyes to make good on her threat of resting.

Her eyes popped open the second the door opened and AJ snuck inside. Not bothering to move, she closed her eyes again. “What do you want?”

“Wow, this is really nice.”

She peeked long enough to see him walking around the room. A sofa for two sat along the wall dividing the bedroom from the main cabin. And behind the bed was another bathroom, this one equipped with a shower.

“What does your friend Harrison do for a living?”

AJ was not in the room to talk about the plane or the man who owned it. She answered him anyway. “Shipping.”

“What does he ship? Cocaine from Colombia?”

She cracked an eye, saw AJ looking out the window.

Fine, she could play possum. Sasha closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and willed her shoulders to relax.

He was staring. She felt his eyes and heard his breathing change.

Sasha counted her breaths, made it to five before she heard movement and felt a dip on the bed.

AJ had his back to her and he was toeing off his shoes.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Once the second shoe hit the floor, he spread out next to her, his back resting against the headboard. “Resting. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“You thought wrong.”

“I had no idea a queen-size bed fit in the back of a plane.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Sasha pushed herself upright and stared at him.

Her outburst had him smiling.

That grin irritated the hell out of her. “What’s so funny?”

“You’re so damn adorable.”

“Adorable?” She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them to find him still staring. “No one has ever called me adorable.”

“Well, you are. Probably not very healthy of me to say this, but I like getting you riled up just to see all the adorbs oozing out.”

“Oozing adorbs? Is that even a thing?”

His smile was all teeth. “It is with you.”

The man was pleased with himself.

Sasha started to push herself off the bed. AJ captured her arm. “Okay, I’ll stop teasing. Don’t go.”

“I’m not leaving because you’re teasing, I’m leaving because you’re sucking up all my air.”

He stopped laughing. “Please.” He released her arm and pulled the pillow she’d had her head on up farther on the bed and patted the space beside him. “Let’s talk.”

“If Neil sent you in here to change my mind . . .”

“Oh, he did.”

Of course he did.

“But that’s not what I came in here for.”

Sasha crossed her legs on the bed and leaned against the wall of windows.

“Do you think there is a link between my sister and the people Pohl hires?”

Yes. She kept her answer to herself. “Define link.”

“Maybe someone like Pohl approached her to work for them. Maybe she kept in contact with someone who did work for Pohl.”

“The people Pohl hires are going to be loners. People who don’t have family or friends as connections. Your sister doesn’t fit the profile.” Not at all. She and Claire, on the other hand, fit it perfectly.

“You clearly have friends,” AJ said.

Could she say that about Neil and the rest of the crew? “He obviously didn’t consider him a friend.” It wasn’t like she took Sunday dinners with the man and his family.

“His mistake.”

She agreed. “Your sister didn’t fit Pohl’s agenda with her personal relationships or her physical attributes. She needed help on the obstacle courses and wasn’t known for her hand-to-hand combat or marksmanship.”

“I take it you looked up her grades.”

“I didn’t have to. I told you, I remember Amelia. She was smart, diplomatic, but not the top physical performer. Once the names are crunched, I’m sure we’re going to find students in much better overall performance on Pohl’s list of recruits.”