Chapter 9 #2
She gives me a thoughtful look. “Okay. Alright. So tonight, I’m supposed to be a philosophy student who met you at a coffee shop.
Pretend I know nothing about anything illegal you guys probably do.
And later, when we’re back in Corsica, I’ll be your accomplice in what will likely be the biggest heist the island’s ever seen, and we will manage to rescue your brother.
” She shrugs. “And for all this, I’ll earn a cool two mil? ”
“Precisely.”
“And you were worried about telling me all this because…”
“I was afraid you’d run?”
She looks at me and blinks, then throws her head back and laughs so loudly I can’t help but smirk back at her. Her laughter’s so unencumbered and free, it’s contagious. My lips turn upward.
“Is something funny?” I finally say, giving her ass a teasing smack.
“Did I somewhere along the line give you reason to believe that I’m a woman of scruples and such fastidious morals that I wouldn’t go along with this when you’re offering me enough money to change my life forever? While you help me with my own undertaking as well?”
If I was crazy about this woman before…
My phone dings with a notification and I look at the time. “Damn, we’ve got to go.”
She leaps off my lap and runs to her luggage. “I need to do my makeup. Oooh, Fabien, will I get to wear a wig?”
“Of course.”
“And, like, heist clothes?”
I pull a suit out of my closet and lay it across the bed. “Yes, naturally, whatever the hell heist clothes are.”
She turns to me, while simultaneously brushing an enormous makeup brush across her cheeks.
“Clothes that help me in my role. To become whoever I need to be. But I’m wondering…”
Do I have a surprise for her.
Standing in front of the large mirror over my bureau, she opens her eyes wide and draws a mascara brush through her lashes. They seem to lengthen as if by magic.
I finish washing, slide on deodorant, and slap on some cologne.
“Oh my God, that’s why you smell so good,” she says with a moan.
“Nicolette. Stay focused. What were you going to tell me?
“Ugh, it’s so stupid. Remember how we almost got run over by that car? Are you going to find that guy and kill him? Will I see this on the evening news? Will you hurt him?”
The questions come while she’s brushing something glittery across her cheeks, so she can’t be that scared.
“If I need to.”
Our gazes connect in the mirror. I can’t quite identify the way she looks at me, but it makes me eager to prove just how serious I am.
As if she suddenly thinks better of it, she places her brush down and doesn’t say anything else.
“Nicolette…”
“What?”
“Finish what you were going to say.”
I grab my phone and slide it into my pocket as she picks up a tube of lipstick.
“I just… well, I was going to ask you if you were serious. Would you really… defend me? Protect me? And if so… Why?”
Because she belongs to me. Because she’s mine.
She still doesn’t get that yet. She will.
“Because that’s who I am,” I tell her. “Killing is messy business we don’t touch unless we have to.”
“But if you have to…”
I shrug. Still, she doesn’t flinch. I wonder what would be a dealbreaker for her, but so far, we haven’t found one.
I shrug on my suit coat as she puts on lipstick.
When my phone buzzes, I quickly answer it.
Maman sounds near frantic. “You’re the last one, Fabien. You know how your aunt is. Are you coming?”
“No, we decided to order room service and stay home instead.” I roll my eyes at Nicolette. “Of course I’m coming.” I gentle my voice to calm her. “Relax, okay?”
I hang up the phone.
“Your mother?” Nicolette asks as I reach for her arm and we head to the doorway.
“My aunt and grandmother wind my mother up so tightly she almost inevitably snaps. It’s like clockwork.”
“Oh, boy.”
“You’ll see.”
“Will there be wine?”
“Of course.”
“Good,” she says with a sigh. “Sounds like we’ll need it.” A wicked gleam glints in her gaze. “Or do I need to ask permission?”
Threading my fingers along the hair at her scalp, I pull her over to me. I love the way she feels, the way she tastes, the way her body melts against mine. “You do. Good girl knowing the rules. So let’s go over this one more time.”
When we both have it perfectly memorized, I kiss her one more time to seal the deal.
“Fabien,” she says on a throaty whisper. “We’d better get downstairs before your mother sends out a search party.”
I grunt and open the door. I suppose she’s right.
Anticipation hangs in the air when we step outside into the hallway. I can’t remember the last time we hosted an event of this magnitude, but I know that Lyam was still in school.
Lyam. Jesus.
Have they lied to us that he’s safe?
I have to focus on what I need to do next.
There isn’t a speck of dust on the furniture, there are still lines in the carpet from the track of the vacuum, and I swear it looks like Maman even had the crystal chandeliers that hang from our cathedral ceilings shined to sparkling.
Our kitchen staff’s likely been working around the clock for days in anticipation of tomorrow’s main event.
If Lyam were here, he'd have already dipped his fingers in the whipped cream or sampled an hors d’oeuvre.
I’ll get him back, and I’ll find whoever did this.
“I read all about the differences between American and French weddings in a magazine,” Nicolette explains as we head downstairs. “I’m looking forward to the wedding procession.”
On the day of a wedding in Paris, the groom typically picks his bride up from their future home before the ceremony.
The procession is led by musicians, the bride, and the bride’s father.
As they head toward the church, children lead the way with white ribbons they stretch across the road, a would-be barrier for the bride.
She cuts the ribbons with scissors as she heads to the church, symbolizing her cutting her way through obstacles that could threaten the wellbeing of their marriage.
When my cousin Ambre was married, she used a blow torch, but her younger sister Céline ducked under the ribbons.
Ambre is the one still married.
“I’m looking forward to the croquembouche,” Nicolette says with a wink. “We have cake in America, but a pyramid of cream puffs sounds so much better. Oh! Did they decide to do something more modern like macarons instead?”
I shrug. I have no idea. “My family’s pretty traditional.”
“I gathered that.”
I don’t like that I’ll have to share her this evening, that others will get to feast their eyes on her.
Before we enter the ballroom for the rehearsal, I tug her into the doorway to my father’s study.
I frame her face with my hands as voices come closer.
Instead of admonishing me or flushing with embarrassment, she grins in excitement.
“Kiss me, then.”
I tip her chin up, my mouth a mere breath away from hers.
I relish the way her lips part and her eyes flutter closed like the batting of butterfly wings.
I kiss one lid then the other. The voices draw nearer.
I brush my lips across her cheeks. She tenses.
Just as the sound of voices seems nearly upon us, I close my mouth over hers.
Then…nothing.
“Where’d they go?” Nicolette asks, her eyes wide and probing.
“To the entrance to the hall, which is right….” I point my finger over her shoulder. “Before you get here.”
“You knew we wouldn’t be caught.”
I shrug. “More like I don’t give a fuck if we are.”
“Ah,” she says softly, almost to herself. “Maybe I need more of that in my life.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
I don’t tell her what I really think, that what I need more of is her in my life.
We have people to talk to, plans to lay, and information to find out.
We step back into the main foyer.
“It’s a small gathering tonight,” I tell her. “Tomorrow, we’ll have hundreds. So this works out well because it’ll be easy to talk to my cousin.”
“Hundreds?” she whispers. Maybe we’ve finally found something Nicolette is afraid of.
“Hundreds don’t matter,” I whisper to her. “All you need to do is focus on me and behave yourself.”
Her eyes sparkle at me. “You say that as if it’s so easy.”