Annie uneasily matched his grin, quickly turning back to slicing the last of the tomato and starting on the basil. “So if you never come here, Nate, why exactly did we make this little field trip today?”
Nate stilled over the pizza. He’d been waiting for the right moment, enjoying his afternoon with Annie too much to ruin it. But she’d opened the door. It was time. “I wanted to bring you here to ask you something.”
Annie frowned slightly. “Sounds ominous.”
“I guess it depends on your answer.” He shrugged. “I wanted to get you away from the casino, the tournament and the wires recording your every word in the hopes I could get an honest answer out of you.”
Nate laid the last of the tomato slices onto the pizza. “I’m worried about the conversation you had with the Captain about Eddie. If Eddie really is working with a woman, the list of partners dwindles significantly. You can imagine what my concern is.” He paused, watching her look down at the herbs to avoid his gaze. “Hit me with some basil.”
Annie’s expression was neutral as she sprinkled the leaves across the pizza and dusted her hands together to brush the remaining bits into the sink. “You think Tessa might be more than just his flavor of the month?”
“It’s a scenario we have to consider. She is registered in the tournament.”
“And you’re worried I won’t cooperate in convicting my own sister.”
Leave it to Annie to cut to the chase. “I hope it doesn’t come down to that, but yes. Gabe is concerned that you can’t be trusted to bring us information if it might implicate her. Or even that you might try to use our relationship as a distraction to protect Tessa.”
“And you? Are you suspicious of me, too?”
Nate turned and looked her directly in the eye. “Yes. It would be stupid not to at least consider it as a possibility.” A flicker of emotion ran across Annie’s face, but it was too quick for Nate to detect whether it was guilt, pain or irritation.
“Let me ease a couple of your concerns,” she began. “First, you came to me with this arrangement, so you can hardly accuse me of manipulating the situation to protect or distract attention from Tessa. Two, my sister and I aren’t very close. She doesn’t confide in me, so if you think I have any inside knowledge into what she’s doing, you’re wrong. If I had any evidence of her or anyone else cheating, I’d turn it over so I could focus on my game and stop wearing that itchy damn wire.
“And finally,” she said, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek and looking him directly in the eyes, “I’m sleeping with you because I want to. You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever encountered and I can’t help but want you.”
Nate’s chest tightened. He didn’t know if it was her brutally honest answers or the way she looked at him when she said how badly she wanted him. Before he could reach out to her, she pulled away to scoop up the pizza stone and carry it to the oven. Annie slid the pizza stone inside and shut the heavy stainless-steel door. “How long does it bake for?”
Nate examined the card Ella had left for them. “She says about fifteen to twenty minutes but that we should watch for the crust to brown.”
She set the digital clock for twenty minutes. “Okay, that’s done, so I’m going to hop in the shower.”
With that, she turned and sauntered out of the kitchen, the colorful wrap falling seductively from her hips to the tile floor.
* * *
Annie hadn’t been surprised by Nate’s questions. She’d been caught off guard by the Captain’s words at lunch the day before, which was why she’d choked, but her fears about it being true were why she hadn’t returned to follow up. She didn’t want to turn in Tessa. And she would go to great lengths to avoid uncovering her sister’s involvement. But at this moment, she had absolutely no evidence of anything but her sister’s poor choices in men and no problem telling Nate as much.
Her answers seemed to satisfy him. For now.
When she got out of the shower, Nate had taken the pizza and a pitcher of iced tea out onto the covered patio. They dined, then moved to the poolside chairs. Annie lay out on her stomach and was very nearly asleep when she felt Nate’s gaze on her. She opened one eye toward him, wincing at the sunlight despite her fashionably oversized sunglasses.
He was openly appraising her body, his jaw hard set in restraint as he took in the dark expanse of her skin. When he realized she was watching him, he smiled sheepishly. “Your body should be bare and sun-kissed more often. It belongs on the white sand beaches of the Caribbean. Not in a dark, smoke-filled casino.”