Chapter 12 - Caroline
Caroline
Everything happened so fast. Even when I saw the man with the knife, and the snarl of hatred on his face, it didn’t sink in until Rafael threw his arm around me.
“This way.”
I allowed him to lead me inside. There was no time for any coherent thoughts. Everything was a vague emotion.
Knife.
Danger.
Safety.
The next thing I knew, Rafael was helping me into a chair in the lobby of the Finance Ministry. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
I nodded. I was safe.
“Fuck,” Harrison said in the chair next to me. “He came out of nowhere.”
Rafael was focused on me. He stripped off his suit jacket, draped it over my shoulders, and began rubbing my arms with his palms.
“Your body is experiencing shock,” he explained, leaning so close that his forehead brushed against mine. I could smell the mint on his breath. “Next you’ll have an adrenaline crash. It’s totally normal.”
Suddenly, my hands were trembling. I gripped my thighs to try to steady myself, but even my legs were shaking.
“Try to relax. This is normal, Caroline.” His palms rubbed heat into my arms. “It will pass soon. You good?”
The last part must have been for Harrison, because the billionaire said, “Never better.”
Rafael gazed into my eyes and said, “You’re good, Caroline. I’ve got you.”
Unable to make myself say anything, I nodded.
“I’ve got you.”
Eventually, things calmed down. Police came and took statements from Rafael and Harrison. Someone brought me a cup of tea. I usually didn’t drink tea, but today it was soothing. Even just holding the cup and letting it warm my palms helped me relax.
“It was an employee at the company Lucien just acquired,” I overheard Rafael telling Harrison. “They were confused about the purchase, and thought you were involved, too.”
“I was attacked, and this time I didn’t even do anything wrong.” Harrison chuckled and ran a hand through his hair. “Life is funny, huh?”
“It’s hilarious,” Rafael said dryly.
“You grabbed me,” I said.
Both men glanced over at me like they’d forgotten I was sitting there. “Huh?” Harrison asked.
“You,” I nodded at Rafael, “grabbed me. You immediately led me to safety. Not your boss. Me.”
Rafael glanced at Harrison. When he turned back to me, he seemed uncomfortable with the statement. “That’s my job.”
It wasn’t his job. His job was to protect Harrison Blackstone, and only Harrison Blackstone. But he’d ignored the billionaire and helped me.
The meeting with the Finance Minister was canceled. Our car was brought around to the back so we could leave without anyone seeing us. The three of us were silent as we returned to the manor house.
“I need to take care of some things,” Harrison announced as we got out of the car. “You two stay here.”
Rafael’s eyes flared wide. “But your security—”
“Jerome can take over for the rest of the day.” Harrison waved to a broad-shouldered man who was standing by the front door.
“That’s not necessary—” Rafael tried to say.
“It’s already decided.” Harrison embraced Rafael. “You did good, Rafa. We’ll talk more later.”
Jerome got into the car with Harrison, and they drove off.
Like a zombie, I went upstairs to my rooms and laid down on the bed. I was suddenly extremely tired, like I’d pulled an all-nighter. I managed to doze off for two hours, then got up and took a shower. After allowing the scalding water to run over my body, I felt a lot more like myself.
Eddie had called three times and sent half a dozen texts. It was still morning in New York, but he had already heard about the attack.
“I’m okay,” I told him. “Really. The guy with the knife never came close to me.”
I could imagine Eddie shaking his head on the other end. “Still, though. It would probably be best if we rearranged your workload…”
“Absolutely not,” I insisted. “I’ll have the piece done by end of day, as we discussed.”
“Caroline…”
“It’s already half-finished, Eddie. Just let me have this. It will give me something to do today. To take my mind off what happened.”
I heard him sigh. “Okay. I trust you, Caroline.”
I pulled out my laptop and got to work on my piece, but didn’t get very far. After staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes, I searched for a video of the knife attack. With so many reporters around, there were three different camera angles all posted online.
The attacker got a lot closer than I remembered. Within three feet before Rafael crashed into him. Even though Harrison was the intended target, it was tough to watch the video and not feel like I’d had a near-death experience.
The chef announced that supper was to be served at eight, but I didn’t feel like being sociable, so I had it delivered to my room. According to the servant who wheeled the meal in on a cart, Harrison and Rafael had also taken their meals in their respective rooms.
I didn’t feel so bad after that.
I worked on my piece for a little while, then eventually got up to take a break. I wandered around the manor, through the downstairs lounges and the kitchens, but didn’t see anyone other than the chef.
“Monsieur Blackstone has retired to bed early this evening,” the chef explained.
The sun had set, so I went up to the rooftop garden to admire Paris at night. I found Rafael up there already, seated at a smaller table with a bottle of liquor and a single glass, his feet stretched out on the edge of the roof.
“Join me, if you want,” he called without looking.
I smiled while taking the seat next to him. “I thought I was being quiet.”
“It’s my job to be aware of my surroundings.”
“That’s more apparent than ever,” I said.
He gestured at the bottle on the table. “Help yourself.”
I squinted at the label, which was covered in dust. “I’m not a fan of whiskey.”
“It’s bourbon, actually. And you’re going to want to try a glass. Trust me.” He refilled the glass with two fingers of the brown liquid, then pushed it a few inches in my direction.
I sniffed it, then took a sip. “That’s pretty good, I guess.”
“I should hope so. It’s Napoleon’s bourbon.”
“What?”
“Thomas Jefferson gifted a case of it to Napoleon. He took it with him to Elba when he was exiled.” He sounded like he could have been describing the weather. “This is the last bottle in existence.”
“How’d you sneak it up here?”
“He gave it to me.” Rafael sounded dazed. “That’s where Harrison went today. He drove out to some old estate where a rich French family has held it in a safe for two hundred years. He offered them a stupid amount of money. Then he gave it to me. As a gift.”
I stared at the bottle. “Wow.”
“I Googled it.” Rafael gripped the top of the bottle with his fingertips and gently rotated it. “I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. This bottle is worth more money than I could ever make in an entire lifetime.”
“You could sell it,” I suggested. “Retire at age… twenty-seven?”
“Thirty-one, but thank you,” he said with a smile. “And I would never sell this.”
“It’s a nice gift,” I admitted.
“Harrison takes care of the people around him,” Rafael said, taking the glass from my hand and sipping the bourbon. He slid it back to me. “He had a busy schedule this afternoon, two different meetings with big investors, but he canceled them both so he could track down this bottle for me.”
“You did potentially save his life today,” I pointed out.
“I guess I did.” He chuckled. “I’ve come a long way since protecting him from school bullies in exchange for ten bucks and a bag of skittles a day.”
“School bullies? Wait a minute… you were the upper classman he hired for protection!”
He nodded. “That’s how we became friends.
I was a year older than him, and he hired me for protection.
We had a good thing going for a few years.
But then I graduated and joined the Army.
My family didn’t have money for college, and I didn’t have the grades to get a bunch of scholarships the way Harrison eventually did.
He hired someone else for protection for his senior year, and I was shipped off to Basic. ”
He slid the glass back to me, and I took another sip. “How did you end up working for him again?”
“It was right after he graduated from college.” Rafael stretched back in his chair, propping his arms behind his head.
His sleeves were rolled up, revealing tan, muscular forearms. “I was in Afghanistan when I got his call. Offering me a job. Not just as his bodyguard, but as head of security for the new firm he was creating. He already had some powerful contacts, and pulled some strings to get me an early discharge. I took it immediately. Best decision I’ve ever made. ”
“In spite of today’s knife attack?”
He laughed. “Oh yeah. No question. I’m incredibly lucky. I’ve gotten to hitch my wagon to a great man. One of the great men of our time. If that means occasionally being in danger from knife-wielding Frenchmen, then so be it.”
I laughed, then took another long sip. The bourbon was growing on me. “You protected me instead of Harrison, though.”
“I protected you both.”
“You prioritized me, then.” I slid my chair closer to him. “You put your arm around me and guided me inside. Harrison was behind us.”
Rafael looked at me, then refilled the glass with another two fingers of priceless bourbon. He let me have another sip, then held the glass close to his nose and swirled it around.
“I acted mostly on instinct,” he finally said.
“I can’t really explain why. I guess because Harrison has been in that situation before.
It’s not the first time a crazy person has tried to swing something at him, believe it or not.
He knows how to react. But you…” His eyes cut over to me.
“I’m guessing today was a first for you? ”
“First time being involved in a knife attack?” I snorted. “Yeah, I can’t say that’s ever happened to me before. Not even in college. And my campus was in a rough part of town.”
“Are you regretting being his biographer yet?”
“I’ve actually been thinking about that all day,” I replied.
One of his eyebrows rose. “And?”
“And… I think no.”
“No?”
“No, I don’t regret being his biographer.
Today was jarring, sure, but I still have it easy compared to some of my peers.
My college roommate is a combat journalist reporting from Syria right now.
One of my coworkers at The Journal had to have a shard of shrapnel removed from her thigh after Kiev was bombed last month.
There are actual journalists in actual danger around the world right now.
And I’m sitting on a Paris roof, drinking Napoleon’s bourbon while gazing at the Eiffel Tower. ”
“Well, when you put it like that. Cheers.”
Rafael took a sip, then handed the glass to me so I could do the same.
As I placed the glass back down, my arm brushed the bottle of bourbon. It teetered for a moment, then began to fall off the back of the table.
The two of us lunged for it at the same time, falling out of our chairs at the same time. We collapsed to the ground in a jumble, with Rafael half-draped across my body. But both of my hands were wrapped around the base of the bottle while Rafael’s fingers grasped the neck.
“Not a drop spilled,” he said, pushing up to an elbow to gaze down at me. “You all right?”
“You’re good at diving on things to protect them,” I said.
“Two for two.”
He smiled, and I smiled with him. But he didn’t move. I was glad he didn’t, was grateful to feel the weight of him on top of me, even in such an awkward position. Rafael twisted, placing the bottle up on the safety of the table, then pulled me to my feet.
My momentum brought me against his chest. He braced me, holding me there for a moment, a sparkle in his dark eyes. The moment was soft and pregnant with possibilities.
And then he kissed me.