Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(7)

Brigitte cut him off with a grin. “Yes, I’m sure you were, ah . . .”

Sasha swallowed back her smile.

He looked between the two of them, his eyes narrowed. “Maybe next time?” he asked her.

She took a breath. “Perhaps.”

That’s all he needed, his head bobbing with a nod as he walked away.

“He looks thick in all the right places,” Brigitte said, her eyes lingering on the man’s back. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

“I never play where I eat,” Sasha told her.

“Probably a smart move. Unless he’s here on holiday . . .”

Sasha laughed, glanced over her shoulder, and admired AJ’s backside from across the room.

Perhaps . . .



AJ positioned himself at a table by the only window facing the parking lot and waited. He’d seen the blonde in the bar before.

Sex on a Stick . . . not so much.

He went through his mental database of accents and had a hard time placing hers. A mixture of German, American . . . Russian. Maybe those were the three languages she spoke. It never ceased to amaze him how many people in Europe spoke more languages than he had socks in a drawer.

He was damn sure she’d caught the attention of every heterosexual man in the bar the second she walked through the door. She wore confidence like a cloak with her purposeful strides and pulled back shoulders. The woman was stunning and she knew it, and not in a teenage cheerleader look at me kind of way. But one born of comfort in her own skin.

AJ observed a few other qualities the woman had quietly displayed. She’d scanned the room when she walked in before making her way to a table with her friend. Both women positioned their chairs so neither of them had her back to the front door. She didn’t carry a purse or a cell phone. The purse, he got . . . the cell phone? Yeah, that’s what stumped him. He didn’t know an able-bodied adult that didn’t have access to the whole world in their back pocket.

Or maybe she didn’t want the outside world to have access to her?

The most important thing he noticed about the woman, who conveniently didn’t reveal her name, was her companion. A woman he had no chance of getting to know socially without a heterosexual woman by her side.

It appeared that after a week in Germany, his luck was starting to change.

AJ waited until the women were done with their single drink before watching them leave.

Denenberg left in her compact car while the sex kitten jumped on the back of a motorcycle and kicked it over with a purr that befitted her.

AJ didn’t wait. He dropped several euros on the table and followed.

Following someone on a motorcycle had proved difficult in the past, but with so few roads to travel out where they were and a pretty good idea of where she was going, AJ gave her a head start and slowly made his way behind her. A small amount of traffic offered him some disguise. The fact that the sun had set aided him in his effort to go unnoticed.

Denenberg took a predictable turn down the road he knew led to her flat.

A lift in his chest filled him with a ray of hope when Sex Kitten stayed on the road leading to Richter.

Maybe he should bug off now and follow her again on another night from a different starting point.

Memories of his sister’s smile kept him moving forward.

AJ peered out at the nearly deserted road and eased off the gas.

Sex Kitten didn’t bother with a directional when she turned on one of the last twists in the road that would take her to the school.

He should just drive past.

Only as the turn drew closer, he knew he couldn’t.

He rounded the corner and his heart skipped several beats.

No taillights. None. Not hers. Not anyone else’s.

There was at least a mile between this point and the turnoff to the school.

“Where the hell did you go?” he asked himself as he sped up.

He made it four hundred yards before his windshield was flooded by a single spotlight in the middle of the road.

AJ slammed on the brakes and swerved. His tiny rental car pitched to the opposite side of the road to avoid whoever was in his lane.

Once his car stopped, he jumped from his seat and outside the vehicle. “Jesus!”

She stood there, legs spread two feet apart, her high-heeled boots lifting her three more inches toward the sky. Her helmet dangled from her fingertips.

“I could have killed you!”

“Why are you following me?” A don’t fuck with me voice replaced the smoky purr from the pub.

AJ shuffled his feet.

He was fucked.

His palms itched.

“You’re from Richter.”

Crickets filled the air in the dark space between them.

His statement was met with deadly silence. A weapon to intimidate.

It worked.

Instead of saying anything, she lifted the helmet above her head.

He sprang forward, hands in the air. “Wait!”

Her helmet took a defensive position in front of her, one of her hands lifted in the air. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

AJ jolted to a stop. “Please, I just need to talk to you.”

She shifted and lifted her helmet again.

He took another step.

Her eyes shot toward his.

“It’s about my sister. She used to be a student at Richter. Last month she was found facedown on the banks of a river. Execution-style murder.” AJ wasn’t sure if he was getting anywhere, but the woman facing him wasn’t walking away.