Gunshots waken Ian Tunbridge, an assistant curator of classical antiquities at the British Museum, on his first day on a dig in California. The only way to save his life is to run for it, but luck is not on his side. At least, not until he meets Lucas Arpini, the brash American photographer who seems to have some sort of clue what’s going on. Together, they’re supposed to be the tools in finding an artifact nobody believes is real -- nobody, that is, except Lucas and the man kidnaps them both.<br><br>Ian doesn’t know what to believe. His colleagues are dead, he’s injured, and he has no choice but to put his faith in a gorgeous stranger. Their escape should lead them straight to the police, but when Lucas shows him pieces of the puzzle they were meant to solve, Ian is too intrigued to walk away. He wants to solve the riddle as badly as Lucas does.<br><br>Unfortunately, they aren’t the only ones ...

Riddle Me Wicked

“Test me,” he said, sitting up. “I’ll prove to you what I can do.”


Ian was visibly unimpressed. “Any kind of test you could manufacture would likely be rigged.”


“Then you make up the test. Anything you want. Make it a language, since that’s your specialty.”


“Yes, you do.” Picking up the laptop, Lucas carried it over to the desk and opened it up. It took a couple minutes to get logged in and connected to the hotel’s wireless. As soon as it was, he stepped back and gestured toward the chair. “Get online and come up with some kind of test. Anything you want. I’ll go take a shower while you do it. That way you can’t accuse me of cheating by looking over your shoulder.”


Though Ian sat up as well, he didn’t move right away. “Any kind of test I’d like?”


“Yep.” He popped the p.“Whatever it’s going to take to satisfy you that I’m the real deal.”


“It’ll take more than a few minutes.”


Chapter 17