Chapter 9 #2
There weren’t many times that my dancing days came in handy since joining the FBI, but right now the years and years of lessons and competitions were finally paying off.
I mean, sure, with the dance scholarship I’d gotten, dancing had helped me pay for college, but the relentless teasing I’d endured from other agents when they found out about it had sullied the victory.
It didn’t matter that I’d also received academic scholarships—all they heard was that I danced my way through college.
Literally. Which only made me want to prove them wrong even more.
“Oh, I do the basics for a lot of different disciplines, but my favorite is Zumba.”
That much was actually true, regardless of our cover. My favorite to dance was contemporary, but my favorite to teach by far was Zumba. No partner needed, and it had a way of bringing everyone together no matter how much prior dance experience they had.
“I love Zumba,” she gushed. “Where do you teach?”
“Viv, mon amour ,” Charles’s lightly accented baritone rumbled quietly, “we really should be going.”
I pretended not to hear him in his attempt to divert his wife from the conversation. “We just moved to the area, so I’m still trying to get my bearings enough to be able to permanently teach a class at one of the rec centers. Right now, I’m just filling in for another teacher until the baby comes.”
“How fun!” Vivienne bounced on the balls of her feet, her ponytail swaying with the motion.
“I’m so glad to meet another pregnant woman who hasn’t let the stereotypes of what we can and can’t do while pregnant hold her back.
It’s crazy how much they try to sideline us to walks and light yoga, even when we’re not high-risk, isn’t it? ”
I nodded vehemently, without the foggiest idea who “they” were. “It’s almost like they’re afraid we’ll break.”
Not sure if that was actually what it felt like, but I’d gotten an idea of what it would be like to be pregnant when Liam wouldn’t let me lift anything heavier than a Papillon.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d really appreciated his help and the view he provided, but I would’ve preferred to be my own judge of what I could handle.
Apparently, Vivienne agreed.
“Or break the baby!” She laughed lightly, smoothing her hair.
Charles fidgeted beside her, eyes flitting between something behind me—Colt approaching, if I had to guess—and me. McBride hadn’t been kidding. This guy wasn’t about to take any chances. Unless his bodyguards counted, he must’ve had zero friends. How lonely. I could almost feel sorry for him.
Not .
“So where did you two move from?” Vivienne asked, nodding at the spot behind my shoulder where I could faintly feel Colt’s heat.
“Nebraska,” I answered, consciously devoting an unhealthy amount of energy to not react to the tingles Colt’s arm sent across my skin as he wrapped it around my waist.
Why McBride had picked Nebraska as our last place we’d lived, I couldn’t be sure.
But if I had to guess, he wanted to find a neutral state that was still similar to where at least one of us grew up.
Since I was from Pennsylvania, that left Colt to have grown up somewhere with way too much corn and way too little human interaction.
You know, in hindsight, that would actually explain a lot.
“You poor things!” Vivienne’s lips pulled into a delicate frown. “That’s far! Did you move to be closer to family, or?—”
Charles squeezed Vivienne’s hand more urgently, finally catching her attention. “I’m sure this lovely couple has to get home soon, mon amour . Perhaps we could catch up with them another time?”
Translation: never.
Vivienne’s frown deepened before morphing into a brilliant smile. “That’s a wonderful idea! Why don’t we have you two over for dinner some time? The only thing worse than moving is trying to cook while half your stuff is still in boxes.”
Charles eyebrows rocketed up, his posture stiffening. “Viv?—”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to put you out,” Colt replied, succeeding in hiding the fact that I was so eager to accept I was about to vibrate out of my skin.
“You wouldn’t be putting us out at all,” Vivienne gushed.
Realizing he was getting nowhere with his wife at the moment, Charles turned to address us. “Would you give us a moment?”
“Of course.” I smiled, ambling away to a respectable distance where we could still catch snippets of their discussion.
Colt must have been on the same brainwave, since he remained silent, pretending to scrutinize the posters on the wall. Or maybe he wasn’t pretending. Hard to tell, since reading wall posters was his idea of a good time.
I readjusted my purse on my shoulder, already imagining the freedom I’d have if my leggings had pockets.
Then I caught some of the Gauthiers’ argument, realizing belatedly it was taking place in French.
The language rolled flawlessly off Charles’s tongue, while Vivienne was more stilted and had an obvious American accent.
“They can’t be that dangerous,” Vivienne argued. “She’s seven months along. What is she going to do? Lamb to the Slaughter us?”
I had to stifle a laugh at that. I hadn’t read that story since high school, and yet I remembered the jilted pregnant wife clobbering her husband over the head with a frozen lamb chop and then cooking the evidence and feeding it to the police. Honestly, not a horrible idea.
“We know nothing about them,” Charles countered. “They’re awfully friendly, don’t you think?”
“Some people are just friendly. They recently moved here, so I’m sure they don’t have any friends yet.”
“And we should become their friends?”
“Charles, it won’t kill us to have a friend or two. I know you’re worried about my safety, but not everyone is out to get us.”
A quick pang of guilt shot through my gut. I had no qualms about double-crossing Charles. But Vivienne? She may not even know about her husband’s underhanded side job.
“All it takes is one, my love.” I glanced over, catching a tenderness in Charles’s eyes I’d never imagined him capable of as he cupped Vivienne’s jaw in his hand.
Huh. So he wasn’t entirely without feeling. He just didn’t feel any remorse for the hundreds who’d died from overdosing on his work or otherwise lost their lives to addiction.
Colt leaned close, his cologne tickling my nose in the most tempting way. Which, for the record, it had no business doing. “I think we should counter-offer to meet at a neutral location. For coffee or lunch or something.”
I fought to keep from nodding visibly. “Good idea. Build their trust first, or we’ll never stand a chance.”
“And I think we should leave first. Not only because it’ll lessen the suspicion against us, but I’m positive Gauthier will send at least one of his men to follow us.”
I would’ve preferred to follow them out, but he had a point. It was the undercover equivalent of playing hard to get. Undercover reverse psychology, if you will.
He led the way, holding my hand like the lovey dovey couple we were supposed to be. Barf . Holding his hand made my stomach swoop and sink. The organ was trying to get away, poor thing.
At least his hands were warm. And surprisingly rough, yet soft at the same time. Was that even possible? Apparently so. And all this time I’d thought his hands would be softer than mine from all the paper pushing and manicures he probably got.
I mean, we’d lived together for the past three and a half days.
The guy had a skin routine as long as the Declaration of Independence.
Which, admittedly, wasn’t the longest document in history, but it was still longer than any straight man’s skin routine had any right to be.
I’d chalk it up to the fact that he wasn’t straight, but no self-respecting gay man would dress like the lovechild of Peewee Herman and Detective Monk.
Then again, it wasn’t like I was exactly fashion-forward. This could be the newest style I didn’t know about. And even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t realistic to assume every gay man was as fashion-conscious as the men in my dancing companies had been.
“I’m sorry if we’ve invited ourselves into your home,” Colt began, somehow oozing charm without being obvious about it.
“My wife can be a little overzealous about making friends sometimes. The last thing we want is to make you uncomfortable. I’m sure we can meet up for lunch or coffee some other time. ”
I smiled politely, my hand cramping from squeezing his so hard when he’d called me overzealous. Definitely wasn’t the worst I’ve been called, but considering he was only ever zealous about his color coding and ironed shirts, it still rubbed me wrong.
As we walked past the couple, Vivienne glared at Charles, smacking him lightly on the arm. His lips tightened into a thin line before splitting into an excessively friendly smile. “Lunch sounds great, actually. How about next Saturday?”
I brightened at the offer, not having to feign any of my excitement. “Next Saturday sounds great!” I fished a pen and a scrap of paper from my purse. “Let me give you my number and we can coordinate later.”
Vivienne accepted the paper and waved cheerily as we left.
It wasn’t until we were past the goon squad and back in the car that I finally took a normal breath.
Colt dropped my hand like a hot potato. At least both of us were on the same page about the appeal of that particular pastime.
Even if the way he’d dropped it like it had begun spewing contagions and plagues of death hurt my pride a bit.
Not that I should’ve expected anything different, since I would’ve done the same thing, but still.
If my hunch was correct, I couldn’t exactly blame him.
I fastened my seat belt, feigning nonchalance as Colt eased into the driver’s seat. “So… Charles is kind of cute, don’t you think?”
He recoiled so hard he missed the seat belt buckle entirely. “ What? ”
I shrugged, scrutinizing his face for his usual tells, subtle though they were. “You know, if he was just some guy instead of a horrible criminal. He’s cute, right?”
Instead of looking left or clenching his jaw like he usually did when I annoyed him, he regarded me with a mix of concern and disgust. Which was pretty much business as usual.
“But he is a criminal,” he argued, clearly affronted. “And probably a decade older than you.”
I doubled down. Why I had to know the answer to something that was so entirely none of my business, I didn’t know. But I did. I had to know. “But if he wasn’t ?”
He shook his head, checking the mirrors and putting the car into gear. “ That’s your type, really?”
I hid my snort with an unconvincing cough. “Uh, no. Not mine. But I could, you know, see if he was someone else’s type, that’s all. I wouldn’t judge someone for… being into him .”
“Oookay.” He side-eyed me before returning his attention to the parking lot.
As we pulled out, a black SUV further down the row of cars followed. One of Gauthier’s goons, just like Colt had predicted.
The reminder of how we’d officially made it onto Gauthier’s radar settled into the heavy silence in the car. Subtly grilling Colt was getting me nowhere, anyway, so it would have to wait. For now, we were still on display.
And we would be until further notice.