Chapter 7
Seven
It took all of John’s willpower not to punch the wall. Vivian held her own during the attack in DC, had barely broken a sweat, so he’d thought she was fine.
God, he was so stupid.
She wasn’t a superhero. She was an ordinary human person who’d taken a beating while he’d spent the last day simmering in his hurt feelings. He would’ve treated a stranger better than the person he wanted to be his wife.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask if you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Peachy.” Her voice’s levity was forced. “I’ve had worse.”
“I can’t believe you put yourself in danger like this.” He rested his hand on her shoulder and smoothed more cream on a greenish bloom at her nape. “The bruises you blamed on Muay Thai class… Was that true?”
“Sometimes.” She stepped away from him. “Let’s get dressed and go.”
“After you take ibuprofen.” He swiped a short bottle of water from the fridge hidden in a cabinet. “Here.”
She took it while strategically clutching her clothes. “Privacy, please?”
He pivoted.
Behind him, fabric rustled. Soon she tore a packet and glugged water.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m officially drugged and dressed, so you can turn around.”
Even bruised and exhausted, she was gorgeous. She’d changed into an ivory V-neck dress and draped a Mediterranean-blue patterned scarf around her shoulders. Sensible sandals replaced her normal sky-high heels, and the humidity had turned her chin-length hair into beachy chestnut waves.
“More modest than my normal clothing.” She hooked aquamarine teardrops into her ears, then lifted the scarf to cover her hair. “But it’s best to blend.”
“You think you blend?”
“Yep.”
That might be the wildest thing she’d confessed in the past twenty-four hours.
“I’m naturally a redhead, but I do this—” she gestured to her brown locks “—to be less noticeable. My mom and sisters are gingers, too. Not the boys, though.”
Before the polygraph, she said she had four siblings. “Where do you fall in the birth order?”
“Middle of the pack. Two older brothers, two younger sisters. My psych profile says I’m a classic middle child. Rebellious, sociable, independent, on-the-go, feels overshadowed. Do your clothes fit okay?”
Like they were made for him. “Yeah.”
“Good, I hoped they would. Let’s go.”
John grabbed the suitcase and followed Vivian. At the front desk, Jane withdrew ten orange one-hundred dirham notes from her wallet and slid them across the counter.
“Merci beaucoup pour votre aide et votre discrétion.”
The attendant pocketed the bills. “Bien s?r, mademoiselle. Toujours heureux d’aider un ami de la Couronne.”
In the main terminal, John murmured, “She called you a friend of the crown. What’s that about? Do you know royalty?”
After a beat, she said, “I can neither confirm nor deny.”
Oh, but that glimmer of a grin meant she absolutely knew a royal. He’d always loved Jane’s confidence, but Vivian’s humble deflection was undeniably sexy. Who was she? Curiosity edged out his frustration as they took the stairs to the lower level.
“I’ll be able to help you better if you tell me more about who you are here,” he said.
“Agree to disagree. And definitely not in a crowd.” She paused at a ticket machine and swiped a credit card. After poking her selections, she collected the tickets it spit out. “Our platform’s over there.”
He tapped his impatient foot. Helluva time for his sleepy curiosity to finally wake the fuck up.
Who was this woman? What had she done during her career?
Where had she gone every time she kissed him goodbye?
All the questions he should’ve been asking over the past year, but couldn’t until they were alone together.
So they waited in silence.
When the train arrived, they found empty seats in the last car. After placing the roller bag in the luggage rack above their heads, he dropped into the seat across a small table from her.
“How about now?” he asked.
With a smile, she answered, “Later.”
As the train whisked away from the airport and into the palm-tree studded city, an older gentleman sat next to Vivian, while a teenage boy sat next to him. Across the aisle, a family of four was sharing an aromatic kebab lunch. Nothing about them screamed spy to him.
His stomach grumbled.
Sometimes, he resented his body’s regimented needs. He was mostly easygoing, but if he didn’t get eight hours of sleep, eighty ounces of water, and meals by six, noon and six, he was a basket case.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Three,” she said. “Nine a.m. our time. Want a protein bar?”
No judgment in her voice, but he felt like a baby.
Grudgingly, he said, “Yes.”
She handed him his favorite—chocolate chip cookie dough.
As he ate, Casablanca whirred past them in a green, blue and tan blur. He relaxed his shoulders. Since he’d switched careers, he’d focused on building his résumé and hadn’t traveled much. Trips for work, sure, but those were all in the US.
He’d forgotten how much new places made his blood hum. If only they had the time to see it like leisure travelers rather than a spy and her wayward maybe-fiancé.
After twenty minutes, Vivian tapped his knee. “This is us—we pick up the tram here.”
More tickets, a brief wait, then a tram ride through increasingly dense neighborhoods. When Vivian stood, he readied the roller bag. Off the tram, the street energy was instant and intense. Motorbikes wove around donkey carts and cars clogging the stone road.
John took the sidewalk’s outside lane. “Is it always this crowded?”
“On the main drag, yes, but not where we’re staying. Turn left.”
The suitcase vibrated as they walked. Sweat beaded and rolled down his back. Uncomfortable, but DC’s swampiness had taught him to tolerate humidity.
Vivian stopped at a humble wooden door. “This is us. Before we go in—while we’re here, I’m Jane again. You’re Jason Jones, according to the passport I swiped from the office. We’ll work on your backstory later, but be sure to respond to the name.”
She creaked open the ancient door.
The inside was like crossing into Narnia.
He tipped his head back. “This is unbelievable.”
Three stories of thick tan walls wrapped around an open courtyard fringed with lush greenery. Intricately laid gold, blue, red and green tiles decorated the floor. A splash pool lay in the courtyard’s center, surrounded by pockets of chairs, tables and loungers.
“It’s my favorite place in Casablanca,” Vivian said. “The person who owns this place, Mariam, ran it with her husband for twenty years. When he died last year, she took it over since women are finally able to own property.”
“Jane!” A woman in desert-colored robes crossed the courtyard, then wrapped Vivian in a hug. When they separated, their hands remained clasped. “There’s no one else here, per your request. Is this the young man I’ve heard so much about?”
Vivian nodded. “Yes, that’s my fiancé. You can stop begging me to bring him now.”
What had she told this woman about him?
“Hello.” He stuck out his hand.
Vivian shook her head slightly. Ah, right. That likely wasn’t done here.
Mariam smiled. “While I congratulate you both, unmarried couples do not room together in Morocco. After I lay out dinner, I’ll stay at my sister’s for the evening. What you two do with that information is up to you. Now, let me show you to your rooms.”
The dark wood banister, made satin by centuries of use, steadied him as he followed the women to their rooms on the second floor.
“Mademoiselle will stay there, and, Monsieur, this is yours.” Mariam gestured to two rooms that faced off across the hall. “I’ll leave you to settle in.”
The older woman brushed by him in a haze of fine flowing garments.
“Here.” He rolled the suitcase toward Vivian. Despite his desperation to get her alone to talk, he’d wait until Mariam left. He wasn’t sure how the conversation would go, but they had a better shot at unvarnished honesty without extra eyes and ears around.
“You can come in.” She took the bag. “We’ll leave the door open.”
In her room, she lifted an orange cookie from a crystal dish on the desk and moaned as she chewed, sending a bolt circuiting through his incorrigible body.
“Want one? They’re my favorite—orange blossom and almond macarons. Mariam makes them fresh every day.”
Macarons had also been his favorite when he lived in Marseille as a teenager. His girlfriend’s parents had run a café that specialized in the light and chewy cookies. But pride demanded he not indulge in the things Vivian had kept from him.
“No thanks,” he said.
“Suit yourself.” She reached into her large purse and withdrew her tablet.
He hovered at the window, trying to ignore her moan as she munched another macaron.
Most nearby buildings had converted their upper levels to entertainment areas.
TV antennae and satellite dishes bloomed like flowers among the hopscotch of roofs.
In the distance stood a clock tower with Moorish windows.
“Good news.” Vivian tapped her nails against the tablet. “We can catch a bullet train to Tangier tomorrow. I have a friend there. Then we’ll take the ferry to Gibraltar, and boom, we’re in Europe.”
“What about trying your office again?” he asked.
She popped another macaron. “I will, but I’ve gotta see what I can do to get intel on my boss’s boss without attracting attention. My gut still says something is off with her.”
“Your gut’s full of macarons.”
“True, but irrelevant.” She swiped away the train schedule, then logged into…a coffee shop website? “Macarons heighten my ability to solve mysteries.”
“Jane.” He relished being able to use her alias. “I could do with more information.”
Pulling her attention from the screen was like peeling apart stubborn Velcro.
“Okay.” She sighed, relenting. “Some of my artists help me with my government job. They get perks as a result.”
“Is coffee the perk?”
She laughed her first genuine laugh with him since the interrogation room in DC. He was surprised the sound soothed the tension knotting his shoulders.