Chapter 14
Fourteen
Midnight. Officially Tuesday, their fourth day on the run. For the past few hours, Vivian had slept. The quiet had given John a chance to roll her advice around in his head.
Regret was a kick in the ass. One he needed.
The woman next to him was all go-go-go, and since college, he was all stay-stay-stay. Then he met Vivian. If her offices hadn’t been attacked, he would’ve stuck with his knee-jerk reaction and remained broken up.
And he would have missed out on the most invigorating days of his life.
As he exited the highway, Vivian stirred.
“Ungh.” She scrubbed her eyes with her palms. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep for that long. Naps are the worst.”
“Incorrect. Naps are objectively awesome.”
“Agree to disagree. Where are we?”
“Just arrived in Marseille.”
Nostalgia tugged his insides as he threaded through the neighborhoods.
Haussmann-style buildings, with their cream-colored stone fronts and intricate wrought-iron Juliet balconies, lined the roads.
He’d visited friends in these buildings, gotten his hair cut over there, taken Gen on a date at that cinema.
As the tiny Citroen bounced over the picturesque street’s cobblestones, his teeth rattled.
“Bet an SUV would be nice on these roads,” he said.
“Blending,” she answered.
On the circle’s other side, the road turned smooth again. Here, more cars and scooters huddled outside establishments. Despite the late hour, tourists milled about. Inexpensive quick-service joints stood shoulder to shoulder with Michelin-starred restaurants.
The fancy places were unknown to him.
Les Burgers de Papa, though? He could taste their cheeseburgers. His high school best friend, Timothée, had been horrified and impressed by the number he could put away.
“We hang a right at the next light,” she said.
They entered another cobblestone circle, then pulled into H?tel La Residence Du Vieux Port’s valet circle. Many flags, including the US’s, sprouted above its entryway.
“Bonsoir.” John handed the keys to the attendant. “We’re checking in.”
“Very good, sir.” The valet gave John a claim ticket from his booklet. “Enjoy your stay.”
They’d enjoy their stay, all right, starting with a full eight hours of sleep in an actual bed. A body couldn’t run on adrenaline and coffee forever. Although if Vivian made a move, he’d happily cut back on his sleep.
After check-in, they opened the door to…the tiniest room he’d ever seen.
“Is this a closet?” If he stretched, he might be able to touch both ends at the same time.
The view was nice, though. The room’s picture window framed the city’s famed port, and amber dots of light glowed within the village across the quay. Above it all, on the hill, stood Notre-Dame de la Garde.
“It’s all I could get last minute.” Vivian shut the door. “Welcome to home sweet-next-eight-hours home. You take the bed.”
“And you’ll sleep where, the floor? We can both take the bed.”
“Okay, thanks.” She rustled in her bag and withdrew the not-actually-a-fountain pen, then tossed her bag on the desk. “Help me lift the mattress?”
He joined her side and lifted. “Why are we doing this?”
“To check for bugs.” She shone her phone’s flashlight between the mattress and the box spring, then ran the pen over its surface. “Both bed and otherwise.”
“I don’t like either option.”
“Me neither, but this isn’t a trusted place, so I need to go through the normal checks.”
She opened drawers, then traced her fingers along the picture window’s edges. Next she took the privacy pen from her bag and carefully scanned walls and furniture like a ghost hunter searching for spirits.
“All clear. But let’s still behave as though extra ears are around?”
“Okay,” he said. “Need help with anything else?”
“I’ve got one more thing to do. Then we’re secure.” She extracted the extra door lock from her bag. After fitting it onto the strike plate, she secured it and flipped the hotel’s safety lock as well.
“There.” She dusted her hands together, then flicked off the room’s overhead light, plunging them into mostly dark.
The city’s ambient glow seeped through the window.
Fatigue swamped him. He kicked off his shoes, then sat on the bed. “I should shower.”
The bed bounced as Vivian sat on the opposite side. “Me too.”
He lay back. “Or at least wash my face.”
“Yeah.” She curled on her side like a shrimp, her favorite sleeping position.
His joints and muscles throbbed. “Most of me hurts.”
“There are pain pills in the first-aid kit.”
“Okay.” He weighed a thousand pounds. “Do you need any?”
Her soft, rhythmic breathing answered him.
He smiled to himself. A small victory. He knew she was exhausted.
As for himself… He’d lie here for five minutes, then dig through her bag for the pain medication. With a Herculean effort, he sat up and pulled the neatly folded red blanket from the foot of the bed and spread it over Vivian and himself.
Five minutes.
* * *
Damn. That was not five minutes. Sunlight streamed through the window, and he had a warm armful of woman. No wonder he’d slept like a brick.
He always slept better with her by his side.
All he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and hide in the cocoon of this hotel. Let someone stop the bad people chasing bioweapons lab information. But Viv wasn’t made that way. If she could do something about a problem, she would do something about a problem.
The responsible thing to do was help her.
His stomach growled.
Vivian quaked in his arms.
“How long’ve you been awake?” he asked.
She delicately twisted out of his grip. “Long enough to decide what I want for breakfast.”
“Which is…?”
“Whatever Genevieve’s café serves.”
“Hard pass.” He threw his forearm over his eyes.
Gen was a one-way ticket to a past version of himself he’d like to forget.
“Hard pass noted and disregarded.” She peeled his forearm away. A week ago, this would’ve triggered a wrestling match ending with her naked and him buried between her thighs.
Don’t go there.
“Spill,” she said.
He’d loved her brown hair, but this fiery red suited her personality better.
“You are insisting I can’t keep something to myself?” he asked.
“I’m thick with irony.” She sat back on her heels. “Come on. You’ll feel better.”
He sat up. “Okay, but don’t think less of me.”
“I solemnly swear not to think less of you.” She held up her hand the way she must’ve when she swore her oath to the Constitution. “Now gimme the tea.”
“Gen’s family’s café is near the consulate.” He blew out his lips. “I stopped there all the time, and she always threw free macarons in my bag. I asked her out, and we became inseparable. Movies, walks in the park, Sunday dinner with each other’s families.”
Vivian flipped a palm to the ceiling. “This is wholesome and adorable.”
“Haven’t gotten to the bad part yet.” He tented his knees and rested his folded forearms on them. “Not long after we began having sex, she started talking about how cute our kids would look, that her parents married young, and why wait if you found your person?”
Vivian widened her eyes. “Bet that put some ice in your balls.”
“It did not. This is where you’ll start to judge me. I knew we should break up, but I liked sex too much. I figured I’d wait it out since college would make us break up.”
“This all sounds like standard teenager behavior.”
“It was.” He sighed. This was his biggest do-over wish. “Until Gen was accepted to UVA, too. When she surprised me with the incroyable news, I panicked and asked my best friend to break up with her for me.”
“Oh.” Vivian flattened her lips. “That’s a weenie move.”
He rubbed at the whiskers on his jaw. “It gets worse. I ignored her texts and calls. Figured I could hibernate. When she showed up at our house, my parents got involved and asked her parents to tell her to leave me alone.”
Vivian searched his face. “Oh, John. I mean, kudos to you for feeling like an asshole about it, but you were just a kid.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“No, but it’s a reason. And the silver lining is, fucking up a relationship teaches you to be better for your next person.”
His gut lurched.
Next person? Was she talking about them, too? He didn’t want to be better for someone else.
He wanted them to fix this and be better for each other.
Vivian pushed off the bed. “We’re definitely skipping Gen’s café. She might stab you with a cheese knife on sight. We’ll just grab something after we visit the US Consulate.”
John stiffened. “You didn’t tell me we’re going there.”
“Did I not?” She furrowed her brow. “Sorry. That’s where the secure line is. We have an appointment at 9:00 a.m. For ‘notarial services.’”
He riffled his hair. “Some of my parents’ old coworkers might still be there. The local staff, anyway. Will that be a problem?”
“Shouldn’t be.” She grabbed her bag. “Our appointment’s under our real names because I don’t fuck with embassy security. So if they recognize you, be your normal pleasant self. Catch up on old times.”
Vivian closed the bathroom door.
He thumbed his chin and stared out the window.
Despite the confession of his past bad behavior, he was in a great mood.
All credit to a solid eight hours of sleep in a comfortable bed next to the woman he loved.
Because he did love her. That love had been put under a lot of pressure, but it hadn’t gone away.
Every second that he’d spent with her since the attack at the office proved that to him.
The bathroom door opened. “Your turn. Do I look okay?”
His heart juddered. Ruby-red lips, the pashmina artfully wrapped around the outfit she’d somehow slept in without wrinkling, and sexy curls. Fuck, he wished they hadn’t fallen asleep so fast last night.
“Not okay, amazing,” he said. “I’m getting used to the red.”
“Me too.” She twiddled the wavy ends. “I haven’t been red since I started at the agency.”
“Why?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Brown blends.”
“You think you didn’t get a second look with brown hair?” He paused in front of her on his way to the bathroom. “I looked twice.”