When the assassin didn’t reply, didn’t rush to assure Rafael that he was honored to work for him the way others had, Rafael’s fingers drummed impatiently on his thigh. It was a nervous habit he had when he wasn’t comfortable, a telling little gesture, at least as far as Drea was concerned. She’d intensely studied his every mood, his every habit. He wasn’t exactly afraid, but he, too, was being wary, which meant there were two smart men in the room.

“I’d like to offer you a bonus,” Rafael said. “An extra hundred thousand. How does that sound?”

Drea didn’t look up, though she quickly processed the offer and what it meant. She went to a lot of trouble to never show any interest in Rafael’s business dealings, and when he’d occasionally asked her some very casual but leading questions she’d pretended she didn’t understand what he was getting at. As a result, Rafael wasn’t as careful around her as he might otherwise have been. As far as he was concerned, she had no interest in anything that didn’t directly affect her, and in a way that was true, just not in the way Rafael thought. He assumed she didn’t care who the assassin had killed for him, that she cared only about what she was wearing, how her hair looked, about making Rafael look good by being as sexy and glamorous as she could make herself.

She was definitely interested in that last part; making Rafael look good in the eyes of others always put him in an expansive mood, a generous mood. Drea studied the platinum and diamond anklet that circled her right ankle, enjoying the way the dangling diamond glittered in the sunlight, the way the platinum glowed against her tanned skin.