17. Grace
Grace
My world smelled like lavender. I stretched, my body warm and cozy inside my little cocoon. But my fingers dragged across smooth cotton, not the brushed flannel of my sheets. And my room didn’t smell like lavender.
Where am I?
I cracked an eye open. Bright sunlight lit up the wall next to me from behind floor-to-ceiling sheer curtains. Mottled gray wall. Little twin bed.
Right. Paris. The tiny hotel we’d arrived at sometime after midnight, when I’d been so tired Garrett had offered to carry me up the stairs.
He had offered that, right? Or was it a dream?
I let my eyes close to find that dream. What my brain found was some half-dissolved memory.
My cheek on his shoulder. The rhythm of the tracks.
And something else, something gentle around my fingers, like?—
Had he held my hand?
No. The hand thing was on the jet. When I’d been white-knuckling the armrest during turbulence, and he’d covered my hand with his. That had been real. This was... sleep-fog. It wasn’t even a dream I could fall back into and let that big man hold me a little longer.
I rolled over and blinked at the opposite wall, where Garrett sat at the tiniest little desk. Or it was a desk made for normal people, and my big, burly, overprotective volunteer bodyguard-type travel companion overwhelmed it. Yeah, that was it.
How long had I been out? I fumbled for my phone on the nightstand. 11:14.
I yawned with my whole body. “Is my phone on the wrong time zone, or is it really eleven?”
He didn’t look away from his laptop. “It’s really eleven.”
“Shouldn’t we already be gone?” I let out another yawn and finally opened my eyes fully. The room had two twin beds, with barely enough room between them to walk. Little nightstand, little desk, little armchair in the corner. This was a hotel to crash in, a far cry from the Four Seasons in London.
Garrett’s bed was made, the sheets pulled ridiculously tight.
His feet had probably hung off the end last night.
His duffel bag sat on top of it, zipped and ready.
He was dressed in yet another dark long-sleeved shirt, as though it was all he owned.
This one was black with a gray logo on the back I wasn’t familiar with, and was just as irritatingly sexy on him as all the others.
I sat up and stretched again for good measure, remaining in my bed. “How long have you been up?”
He tapped a ceramic mug next to him. “Long enough I had time to eat breakfast and bring you some coffee.”
“That’s what I need!”
“That was three hours ago, so it’s cold.”
The sun shining through the window strengthened my resolve not to let his supreme dourness dampen my mood. “People love their iced lattes. I’ll pretend that’s what it is.”
“It’s not exactly a latte.” He lifted the mug and reached over his bed, handing it to me. “And I grabbed you a croissant for when you got up.”
I slipped out from under the covers and accepted the mug, then sat back in my cozy nest. “Breakfast in bed. How thoughtful!”
He frowned and returned his attention to his laptop.
My morning energy could be a lot to handle, and was definitely too much for Mr. Grumpy Face.
But I’d had an excellent sleep, I was in Paris today, and nobody could take either of those away from me.
I took a long sip from the coffee. It wasn’t even lukewarm, but there was a hint of nuts and chocolate beneath the roasted notes.
Surprisingly tasty. And he’d put stevia and some vanilla flavor into it.
Exactly how I liked it.
“I can’t believe I slept so late.” I fluffed up my pillows and leaned against the headboard. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You needed the sleep.” He was studying his laptop intently, leaning closer to the screen. “We’re not leaving for Jean’s for another couple of hours.”
“Fair.” I wrapped both hands around the cup, although it had long since stopped providing heat. “I feel like I wasted half the day.”
“You spent yesterday being chased through London. Sleep was what you needed.” His voice was somewhere between completely distracted and gentle. Maybe he did care, just a little bit? Or maybe I was still half-asleep and imagining things.
Like imagining him holding your hand on the train?
I took another sip of the cold coffee, and my stomach rumbled. “Can you pass me the croissant?”
“After you get up.”
“I am up.” I sat up straighter, even though he wasn’t looking at me. “I’m literally having a conversation with you.”
He craned his neck around only far enough to raise his eyebrow at me. “Up means out of bed.”
“That’s blackmail.” I folded my arms theatrically, suddenly grateful I had a sports bra on, unlike the night I’d found him in Izzy’s kitchen. Although I wouldn’t have complained if he was half-naked again. After this trip was over, I’d have fantasy material for years.
“Possibly.” He turned around, leaving me to glower at his broad shoulders.
“What are you working on?”
“Email.”
I took another sip of my coffee. The more awake I got, the worse it tasted. “Anything interesting?”
“Tristan got a photo of the second man from the security cameras at Isabella’s gallery. The image is shit, but Arthur sent it to Morganna. If anyone can sharpen it up and identify him, it’s her.”
“Morganna? She’s the CIA targeter, right?”
“Former.”
“You’re all former somethings, aren’t you?”
He twisted in his seat. “You’re?”
“The Round Table guys.” I lifted my mug. “And gal? Gals?”
Garrett just sat there in his little chair with his little frown, all broody, as though he didn’t know what to do with me.
Was I being too sassy this morning, like the woman in my Marine-protects-the-witness novel?
Or was he staring because my hair was probably an absolute mess, and I undoubtedly had pillow imprints on my face.
“I should have a shower.”
“I’ll go downstairs.” He stood, but didn’t leave. “They may still have hot coffee.”
Sliding out from under the covers, I considered pushing my luck further.
He wasn’t as intense as he’d been yesterday, despite the whole fleeing-the-country thing.
And we had almost sort of bonded on the train before I fell asleep last night.
So maybe? “Do you think we could walk around a little before we go?”
He leaned down to check his laptop again. “No.”
“Right.” I made my way around the narrow bed and placed my mug on the desk next to him. “Of course. Danger and all that. I mean, I know we’re not here for sightseeing, but I’m actually in Paris, and yesterday I was in London and didn’t get to see any of it, and?—”
“Grace.”
“I just want to walk down the sidewalk, so I can hear people speaking French. We could find hot coffee and fresh pastries.” I wandered toward the window and pushed aside the curtain to look outside.
Vehicles motored along the road. A woman carried a basket of flowers.
A couple rode by on bikes. “It’s right there. All of it. Right outside.”
Silence.
“I know it’s not safe. I know after the whole Gherkin debacle I have no right to ask for anything. But we’d be together the whole time, and it’s the middle of the day, and I wouldn’t wander off, I swear.” I turned back to face him. “I want to see Paris, Garrett. Anything. Even just a few blocks.”
He straightened, making the room seem smaller than it already was. He joined me at the window, pulling the curtain back into place, and holding it aside only far enough to inspect the street below. “If I say yes, will you listen the second I tell you it’s time to get back inside?”
I grabbed his forearm—his way too thick and corded forearm— Grace, stop it. I let go of him and tried not to bounce in place. “Seriously?”
He huffed at me. “Get cleaned up. We’ll go when you’re ready.”
I’d convinced him. He’d said no, and I’d actually changed his mind. Something about that felt bigger than a walk.
I hurried through the shower and drying-off process, so twenty minutes later, we stepped out onto a Paris street.
And it was nothing like the postcards. No Eiffel Tower.
No accordion music drifting from café doorways.
Just narrow streets lined with cream-colored apartment buildings, iron balconies with trailing ivy, and an elderly woman walking a dog so small it looked like a mop with legs.
It was ordinary. Lived-in.
And I loved it.
We passed a boulangerie with a line out the door, the scent of fresh bread and butter making my stomach growl despite the croissant I’d eaten on our way out.
A fromagerie with wheels of cheese stacked in the window.
A florist arranging buckets of sunflowers on the sidewalk.
The August air was warm but not oppressive, carrying the aroma of coffee and something savory from a restaurant preparing for lunch.
Garrett walked beside me, eyes moving the way they always did—doorways, windows, the couple crossing the street ahead of us—but his pace stayed easy. Not rushing me. Not steering me back toward the hotel.
“Didi would have loved this,” I said.
He glanced at me.
“She and Grampy came here several times, but she didn’t talk about it like she did London.” My throat tightened, and I switched my focus to a window display of kitchen gadgets I didn’t need.
“Because she was hiding something?”
Delphine. What does it mean, Didi? “I don’t know.”
Instead of dwelling on it, I stopped at a patisserie with a stunning display case full of éclairs with glossy chocolate tops, fruit tarts arranged like jeweled mosaics, and macarons in every color imaginable.
My attention snagged on a row of delicate mille-feuille, its layers of pastry and cream so precise they looked like they’d been cut with rulers.
I sighed, letting go of my thoughts of Didi, and admired the delicacies in front of me. “Garrett. Look at these.”
“I am looking. They’re pastries.”
“They’re art.” I pointed at a tiny chocolate sphere dusted with gold leaf. “That one belongs in a museum.”
“Then don’t eat it.”
“That’s not—” I turned to look at him and stopped.
The corner of his mouth moved. Up. Not down.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No.”
“You’re definitely laughing at me.”
“I don’t laugh.” But the almost-smile was still there, hovering at the edge of his mouth like it wasn’t sure if it had permission to exist.
He started walking first, simply trusting me to follow him. Halfway along a tiny park where pigeons swarmed an old man with breadcrumbs, Garrett stopped in front of a shop and gestured inside. “You should replace your lip balm.”
I stared at him. “My what?”
“The one the guy took. When he searched your purse.” He’d stopped at a pharmacy. He hadn’t been walking randomly; he’d led me here intentionally. “You’ll want it.”
In the chaos of everything yesterday afternoon, I’d forgotten.
But Garrett had remembered.
“That’s—” How was I supposed to finish the sentence? Thoughtful would sound silly. Sweet would make him scowl for sure. “Yeah. Okay.”
The pharmacy was tiny, crammed with products I didn’t recognize, and all the labels were in French, of course.
But lip balm was universal. I found a small pot that smelled like honey—fifteen euros, which was insane, but I didn’t care—and brought it to the counter.
When we returned to the street, Garrett was back scanning the world for threats.
“Thank you,” I said. “For thinking of it.”
He shrugged. “You’ll need it for the flight home.”
Right. Because everything has to be useful or practical.
Except practical would have been ignoring it entirely. Practical would have been assuming I could do without lip balm. This was something else. This was him noticing a small thing had been taken from me, filing it away through all the events that followed, and quietly making sure I replaced it.
My whole body tingled for some reason. He did care, didn’t he? Somewhere inside of him, there was a sweet, caring man who must have been dying to get out. Part of me needed to find that man. Another part of me thought searching for it might lead to things I wasn’t ready for.