Race to World's End (Rowan and Ella Book 3) Read Free

cook’s girl reset the table for her breakfast. The townhouse she, Rowan
and Halima shared belonged to their friend, Marvel Spenser. It was on a quiet and
leafy residential street a comfortable walking distance to both the American
University and the center of Cairo.
    Rowan talked
occasionally about buying their own place, but Marvel, a wealthy American
heiress, insisted she didn’t need the townhouse and was never in Cairo long
enough to use it anyway. Besides, she and her new husband, Josh, were always either
on safari or archaeological dig. Ella had to admit it was a convenient
situation for everyone.
    “Ella? Is that
you?” Halima called up to her from the dining room. Ella could hear the muted
rumbling of Tater’s chatter in the same room. “Are you ready to go to the park
this morning? Or do you have a painting lesson?”
    Ella’s stomach
muscles clenched. What is wrong with me?
    “Nope, I’m
ready,” she said, forcing her voice to sound light. “Just let me grab a cup of
coffee and we’ll be off.” She descended the stairs toward her two dearest ones,
watching the dust motes dance lazily in the air before her.
    Halima sat at the
breakfast table feeding a biscuit to the toddler. She looked up when Ella
entered. “ Effendi Rowan has already
eaten and gone,” she said.
    “I figured.”
    Ella sat next to
Tater and pulled him onto her lap. “Hello, muffin boy,” she said, kissing his
ear. He squealed with laughter but turned back to Halima, who held his cookie.
      “Do you want to talk about it?” Halima
said.
    Ella poured a
coffee for herself and sighed. “What’s to say? Rowan’s excited about going to
London and I’m trying to be supportive, but just between you and me I don’t
want him to go. He said we’d never be separated again.”
    “Then go with
him.”
    “Does the word Titanic mean anything to you? Just last
week Emily Swanson’s lady’s maid went back home for her father’s funeral and
the whole boat sank. It doesn’t matter that they were all rescued,” Ella said
hurriedly before Halima could say it. “Emily said it was horrible.”
    Tater knocked
over his milk cup and Ella grabbed a napkin and mopped up the spill. “I can’t
believe ship travel is still so dangerous in 1925. For crap’s sake, you people
need to work out the kinks.”
    “Well,” Halima
said, smiling at her, “you know Tater will be perfectly safe here with me, and
it would be a lovely second honeymoon for you—”
    “Have you been
talking to Rowan?” Ella narrowed her eyes.
    Halima laughed.
“I have not but it does seem like a logical suggestion.”
    “I’m not leaving Tater,”
Ella said firmly.
    ***
    Rowan jerked his
tie out of its knot and squinted into the bedroom mirror. Normally he hated
these kinds of work dinners—especially with Ella in the kind of mood
she’d been in lately. But tonight he found he was actually looking forward to
it. He glanced over at her as she sat at her dressing table. She’d done
something with her hair for a change, he noticed. That was good. It didn’t do
to be too different in 1925.
    He watched her
fasten a string of pearls around her neck. His eyes were instantly drawn to the
ample cleavage that now set the necklace off. Ella’s complexion was flawless,
and that complexion went all the way down to her pretty little toes. He felt a
stirring below the belt and dragged his attention away from her. First, they
didn’t have time, he reminded himself. And second, well, they didn’t have time.
    “Do you need help
with that?”
    He looked up to
see she was watching him now. He put his hand to his tie and turned back to the
mirror. “I’ll get it,” he said. “You look beautiful by the way.”
    “Thanks.”
    He watched her
through the mirror as she moved to the bed to gather her wrap and her clutch.
He felt his cock take control again as his eyes watched her hips and bottom in
that dress—dark lavender silk that moved over her curves and hugged her
snugly