Chapter Fifteen #2
“Let me guess,” Bene interjected. “Nils ?ren Jensen.”
I blinked. “Who?”
Bene shook his head sadly. “We really have to get you out of that chateau from time to time.”
I sighed. He could say that again.
“Another capitalist Anastasia won’t approve of,” Marius decided.
“Well, he certainly has the funds,” Henrik said.
Roux looked to me. “Who did you have?”
I held up the candidate I planned to push as much as I could. “The Marguerite Tobler Arts Trust. It sounds perfect.”
Roux rubbed his fingers together. “Do they have the cash to compete with Nils ?ren Jensen?”
I grimaced. Probably not. I leafed to the second candidate. “This one has potential. Raisa Kepke, former Cultural Minister of Latvia.”
“Former?” Marius asked.
I made a face. “She was until she was implicated in a corruption scandal involving EU arts funding.” I sighed. “Another friend of Gordon’s, I suppose.”
“Mina is finally catching on,” Bene stage-whispered to Henrik.
“According to the file, she’s also a raven shifter,” I added.
“Makes sense. They’re sneaky as hell,” Bene said. “And they love shiny new things, a little like dragons.”
“Nothing like dragons,” Marius grumbled.
“She now runs an NGO that claims to protect European cultural heritage,” I finished. “But it’s a little murky, at best.”
“Just like Gordon,” Bene pointed out.
I snagged the last chocolate croissant from the breakfast platter, desperate to improve my mood.
Roux pointed to Marius. “Who’s your guy?”
“Not my guy,” Marius grumbled.
“He’s an arms dealer, right?” Henrik asked.
Marius nodded. “Bogdan Karachanov. Bulgarian. Bear shifter.”
“Wait. What about the client?” Bene asked.
Marius shook his head. “She’s human. No reason to believe she knows about shifters.”
Bene stroked his chin. “Well, if this Bogdan guy is an old-time Marxist, that could appeal.”
“Who do you have?” I asked Roux.
Roux held up a picture of a smiling platinum blonde. “I’m not sure what to make of this one.” He glanced down at his notes. “Charlotte de Mézières.”
Bene did a double take. “The countess?”
Clearly, the lion shifter kept up with the society pages.
“Aristocrat slash influencer,” Roux read. “A former beauty pageant contestant from America who married a Belgian aristocrat. Now she runs social media accounts under The Philosophy of Beauty label.”
Bene nodded cheerfully. “That’s the one.”
“She ‘curates private spiritual retreats in Provence where guests commune with select masterworks,’” Roux read.
I shook my head. “Anastasia will never go for her.”
“She will if Charlotte charms her socks off,” Bene countered.
“You’re on a first-name basis with the countess?” Henrik smirked.
Bene huffed, a little hurt. “Everyone is. She’s super friendly.”
“When the camera is switched on,” Marius muttered.
“What about the sheikh?” Henrik asked Bene.
“Well, he definitely has sufficient funds. He’s sponsored high-level sporting events in the Middle East and plans to move into art and tech next.”
“Art and tech, or art or tech?” I asked, trying to picture what either actually meant.
Bene shrugged. “Not sure he cares, as long as it brings publicity.”
“Well, that’s who we have,” Roux concluded. “We need a short list of about three. Who can we eliminate?”
“**Everyone but the Swiss art foundation,” I said, but everyone ignored me.
“That Russian — Levitsky,” Henrik proposed. “And the sheikh.”
“Agreed.” Marius nodded.
“And the Swiss arts foundation,” Roux said.
I shook my head. “We have to give it a try.”
Roux pulled the file from me, leafed through it, and pointed to the spreadsheet detailing their net worth.
I drooped. Boy, did the world suck sometimes.
“So, no arts foundation,” Roux concluded.
“Well, then you can cut the tech guy too,” I said a little vindictively. “Anastasia will never go for him.”
Roux shook his head. “The tech guy stays in.”
“Why?” I asked.
“The tech guy stays in,” he repeated firmly. “What about eliminating the countess?”
“No way!” Bene protested.
“The client wants secrecy, right? There’s no way an influencer is going to keep a deal like this quiet,” Roux reasoned. “Plus, I doubt she can outbid the others.”
Things went on in that vein for a while, and tensions rose because the guys, as usual, couldn’t agree.
“We can’t cut the countess,” Bene insisted.
“She’s the first we should cut,” Henrik retorted.
“No, that would be the tech guy,” Marius grumbled.
“The tech guy remains.” Roux’s eyes took on the heated sheen shifters got when they were agitated.
I patted the air with my hands. “Enough. Enough already!” I shouted when they didn’t respond. “We’ve eliminated three. I say I present the remaining four to Anastasia and let her decide. It’s her painting,” I added a little bitterly.
Roux glanced at his watch, clearly irritated that we hadn’t used our time more efficiently. We were still on schedule — just not ahead of schedule, as he preferred.
Ping! His phone chimed with a message he read aloud.
“Apparently, the countess is unavailable to view the painting in person. She’s doing a photo shoot in Bali.”
“Bummer,” Bene lamented.
Roux crossed her name off the list. “That leaves us with three.”
“Who do you think the client will choose?” Bene asked.
I shrugged. “I find her impossible to predict.”
He stood and reached into a massive feline stretch, then scratched his belly. “I wonder how long this will take, and where Gordon will send us afterward to wait for our next assignment.”
“Back to Chateau Nocturne,” Marius said, as if it were obvious.
Henrik’s eyes hit the floor, while Roux and Bene glanced at each other, then at me.
“Not the chateau?” Marius asked, puzzled.
I bit my lip. Had I made the right decision?
“Henrik has not proven that he can follow the rules,” I said in a major understatement. “I’ll be letting Gordon know when we finish here in London.”
“And if he’s out, we’re all out.” Bene glared at the vampire.
Marius stared at me, and I burned to say something like, I was kind of hoping you and I could work something out.
But he’d barely spoken a word to me since that night in Paris. And no matter how my body burned for his — more than ever lately, for reasons I couldn’t explain — that didn’t exactly form a solid foundation to build a healthy relationship upon.
“Maybe you could reconsider,” Bene tried.
“You mean, reconsider if I want to be alive or dead?” I snipped, glaring at Henrik.
“I apologize. A thousand times,” the vampire said, sounding genuinely contrite. “If I could go back in time and change what happened, I would.”
“Well, you can’t go back in time. Especially once someone is dead,” I snapped, cutting him no slack.
Bene scratched his head. “Maybe we can find a better solution.”
I was all ears, but no one said a word. And even if they’d been bursting with ideas, there was another complication.
I swallowed hard. “That will be tricky, now that I’ve agreed to host the regional police championships at the chateau.”
Everyone stared.
“The regional police championships?” Marius’s voice registered hurt and betrayal.
If I could have shrunk to the size of a mouse and scurried away, I would have.
Instead, I forced my chin up and indicated Henrik. “Are you telling me I have grounds to reconsider?”
Marius’s throat bobbed, and even Henrik appeared mired in a well of regret.
Roux shook his head. “No. You’re right, and we have to live with that.”
My heart sank. Could they, though? And could I live with myself if the consequences were as dire as they’d hinted?
I glanced at Marius, hoping to find understanding in his eyes. But his face hardened, and he turned coldly to the door.
“Time to go. The client will be waiting.”