Page 87 of Her Selfless Warrior (Omega Sky)
“That’s right,” Amy smiled sweetly.
“So where would I meet you, Andrea?” Ryker interrupted their byplay.
“I’ll meet you outside the High Limit Slots Area at ten tonight, and I’ll be right back with your drinks. Are you sure I can’t get you gentlemen any refills?”
Kostya and Ryker shook their heads, and Andrea headed back to the bar.
“Ooooh, Baby, you’re getting lucky tonight,” Amy said in a sing-song voice.
“Is she for real?” Ryker looked over at Lark. “I mean seriously, she’s behaving like a child.”
Lark and Kostya started laughing at the same time.
“Like what I said wasn’t true,” Amy scoffed. “You attract women like honey attracts bees.”
Ryker leaned back in his chair and twirled his finger in front of Amy, “and you’re saying you’re dressing to please yourself? I call bullshit. You’re putting on quite the show for every man in this bar.”
Amy pursed her lips and blew him a kiss. “I’m glad to hear that you appreciate my efforts. But I hate to be the one to spoil your little daydream. I was coming here as Lark’s wing woman, so I dressed the part. If I’d known that I was dressing as part of a couple, it would have been a totally different look.”
She took the last sip of her drink, then set it down and pushed it toward the center of the table. “But come to think of it, I guess if Lark had told me about you, I would have no other choice but to dress this way.”
“And why is that?” Ryker asked.
“How else would a woman dress who is dating a peacock?”
“Well, Sweetheart, if you wanted to be accurate to nature, you should have dressed down, because the peahen is a lot drabber than the flamboyant peacock.”
Amy slammed her palm over her mouth to muffle her laughter, then finally asked, “Is that for real?”
“Absolutely. You can Google it.”
Andrea showed up with the waters and Amy’s martini, and Kostya asked to close out their tab. She nodded while managing to caress Ryker’s shoulder as she left to run Kostya’s credit card.
“Yep, she has visions of little Rykers and a picket fence. How many kids do you want?” Amy asked.
“Three,” Ryker answered immediately.
Amy’s glass stopped midway to her mouth. “For real?”
“Yep. I came from a big family. There were five boys and one girl. That was too much, so I always thought three would be the perfect number.”
“Huh, who would have thunk it.” Amy took a sip of her cocktail. “So tell me more about this story you’re working on,” she asked Lark.
Lark’s shoulders slumped. She didn’t mind talking about her investigation, but she was really worried about Candy. She leaned in and so did the other three at the table.
“There’s this company, Sanofi Manufacturing and Analytics. It’s fairly new to the game here in D.C. Just started up twelve years ago, but it was started by Senator Alcott’s sister-in-law and a guy nobody ever heard of, but he’s the money behind the Trusted Allies lobby.”
“Oh hell. I fucking hate politics, but even I’ve heard about those lobbyists running around Washington like little cockroaches. They’re everywhere,” Ryker said with disgust.
Lark felt Kostya’s shift in mood and looked over at him. He looked grim. “What?” she asked.
“Trusted Allies has not made any friends with the Navy.”
“In what way?” Lark wanted to know.
Kostya shook his head. “Can’t say. But they’re big players. Really big. Tell me more about Sanofi.”
“Sanofi might call itself a manufacturing company, but it only ever manufactured one thing. That was an innovative retraction actuator for fighter jet landing gear. Everyone was all over it, and it worked, but the truth is, they stole the tech from a company in India and ran them out of business.”
