Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(147)

“All the goodies for your party,” Declan replied, his eyebrows wagging.

“What, really? My party?”

“Oh, yes, your coming out party. Now into the back seat!” he insisted teasingly.

“Wait,” I protested as I headed for the door the chauffeur held open. “I get a party? When?”

He didn’t say anything, just opened the front passenger door and slid into the seat directly in front of mine. I scootched forward on the supple, blue-black leather and tried to catch his eye again.

“What do you think of the car?” he asked distractedly, flipping some buttons on the gleaming ebony dash panel in front of him.

“It’s pretty great, but--”

“It’s an eight-cylinder, 6.75 litre engine,” he said. “Feel that rumble? That’s power.”

“Um… OK. I guess I don’t really speak Car,” I admitted.

“That means it has a lot of horsepower.”

“I like the round gauge thingies on the dash,” I offered gamely. “It looks like an airplane.”

“It means it gets about eight miles to the gallon,” Jackson added wryly.

Declan waved his fingers in the air. Shoo. “Not the point.”

“I’m getting a Tesla,” Jackson murmured conspiratorially, leaning toward me.

“The electric car?”

“Yeah,” he said, his eyes lighting up with an inexplicable zeal. Cars. OK.

“Everybody has a Tesla here,” Declan said dismissively as the driver shifted the Bentley into drive and began rolling us toward traffic. I had to admit, the animal rumble of the motor did feel quite primal under my thighs. We pulled onto a busy, winding thoroughfare. “Look there. Every single taxi in Amsterdam is a Tesla now.”

“Well, it’s totally cutting edge technology,” Jackson shot back irritably. “In five years, Tesla’s market capitalization is going to be through the roof.”

“It’s already through the roof, if you ask me. There’s a lot of optimism quilted into their current valuation.”

Jackson rolled his eyes and knuckled his chin then diverted his gaze to the window. I could tell this argument had been played out many times before, probably word for word. But once Jackson fell silent it seemed to be over like a bubble had popped and disappeared.

“V-8 huh?” I said into the silence as we drove through decidedly European-looking streets. There were more bicycles than cars, I was sure. And canal after canal, spanned by flower-bedecked bridges.

“Well it sure is nice. I mean these seats… And there’s a tray here like in an airplane… and what is in this compartment… Hey! More champagne!”

I yanked the bottle out of the small, built-in cooler and held it up triumphantly.

Jackson heaved a sigh and turned back to me, his expression warming as he met my eyes.

“Maybe not yet… I could go for an espresso though.”

“Oh, man, yes,” I agreed passionately, my mouth watering at the thought. “Coffee, for sure… Wait, what is that?”

Jackson grinned, his eyes crinkling.

“Jackson…” I breathed, not really sure I could be seeing what I thought I was seeing. “That’s the Rijksmuseum!”

“Sure is,” Declan drawled from the front seat.

I pressed my fingers to the cool car window as the huge, dramatic building loomed larger ahead of us. I had studied its collections so thoroughly, I felt like this was some kind of homecoming. Images of masterpiece after masterpiece flipped through my mind as though they were on a turning wheel.

“Oh my gosh,” I breathed, virtually clawing at the window. My heart clanged in my chest. “Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh…. Everything… I mean so much of western civilization was shaped by the pieces that are just in there… Just behind that plaza, those walls.”

“Well, you can’t see them from here,” Declan said sarcastically.

“No, she can’t,” Jackson shot back. He sighed through his nose, a sound I had rarely heard from him. “Driver, can you let us out?”

“What? It’s too early, though...”

I turned in my seat to face him, startled momentarily by the keen look of determination on his features.

“I can at least get you closer,” he said simply.

The driver angled the car smoothly to the edge of the bike lane and then exited his door, jogging around the rear end to reach mine. When he opened my door, I inhaled gulps of early morning Amsterdam, trying to quell the swelling emotions in my chest.

On shaky legs I stepped out of the car and stood as solidly as possible on the street as bicyclists sped by, one after another. The driver touched his forehead in a sort of salute.