Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Fabien
We leave just as the bride and groom enter. My mother’s not happy, but when I tell her what’s going on, and that one of Nicolette’s best friends is in trouble, she kisses Nicolette’s cheek and wishes us well.
“Be careful,” she whispers. “And come back, Nicolette, won’t you?” She gets a troubled look, then winks. “He’s more… human when he’s around you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, nothing, sweetheart. Bring her back soon.”
Nicolette looks distracted.
“What’s on your mind?”
“Oh,” she says, when we pile our things haphazardly in the back of a car that will take us to the airport.
“Nothing much. Just a grand theft worth hundreds of millions of euros, while my friends are being arrested and someone’s planning an attack, your lecherous cousin’s vivid reminder that I’m nothing but a whore, the allusion to Thayer having women of his own… ”
Her voice trails off as she looks out the window.
“And what?” Something tells me she doesn’t want to talk about this.
“Eh, that’s it.”
“Nicolette.” I tug her hair and make her look at me.
“What?” she whispers. Her large eyes look guarded, somehow, as if she’s put a wall between me and her heart. Not that I blame her. She thinks I’m letting her go.
“Lying to me won’t go over well for you.”
I reach for her and bodily drag her onto my lap. Her back is stiff as she looks away.
“What is it, Nicolette? You’re hiding something from me.” When she doesn’t respond, I tighten my grip on her and try another angle. “Partners in crime can’t communicate well with one another if they’re holding things back.”
I feel the sting of hypocrisy prick at my long-forgotten conscience.
He’s more human when he’s around you.
“I don’t really want to… Look, we have a business arrangement. So when I get all disappointed or whatever, I just have to be realistic. You’re paying me a lot to pretend to be your girlfriend.”
The tires roll over a bumpy part in the road. She holds onto me tighter so she doesn’t fall. I grip her harder to me, making sure she’s safe.
I don’t want to push too hard.
I don’t want to scare her away.
But if she’s afraid that she doesn’t want to be separated…
“Yeah. I’m paying you a lot, but that was our arrangement. We have five minutes before we get to the airport. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“I’m enjoying this,” she says with a smile. “That’s all.”
“Enjoying… what, exactly?”
“Being with you.” She shrugs. “The way you get all protective and stuff. The way you… I don’t know. Just being a couple. I’ve never been a couple with anyone before and I like it, okay?”
“Fair enough. I like being a couple, too,” I tell her. I lean in and whisper in her ear, “We could take the scenic route to the airport. One push of a button…”
“Means we don’t get back in time for Cosette,” she says on a sigh.
“We’ll stick to the plan. But listen, we need to make sure that we don’t lose sight of what we need to focus on here.”
“Which is?”
“You and me, alone, while you earn your fee when we get back to my room tonight.”
“Yes, sir. So what were you on the phone about?”
I arrange my hands around her back so she faces me, and interlock my fingers. “I was arranging for certain items to be delivered to our room upon arrival.”
A wicked glint lights her eye. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
I kiss her cheek. “But there was more. It seems the man who attacked you had friends and enemies. They’re asking questions. I’ve had to call in some favors.”
“That’s a lot of favors you’ve had to call in,” she notes.
“Yeah, and believe me, that’s never a good thing.” They’ll come back to haunt me, and when I least suspect it. Favors added up are like ghosts hiding in the shadows, waiting to haunt me.
Have I asked her for a favor? My whole life, I’ve wondered what was real, what was authentic. I’ve enjoyed trying on different disguises and playing parts. They were only games, things to keep myself interested with the decided benefit of becoming useful when I had a job to do like I do now.
I’ve paid her for the weekend. I’ve paid her to be mine. I tell myself that I’m only obsessed with her, that I can’t buy love. I’ve stolen and pretended for so long, I wonder what’s real. What’s authentic. What will stay when all else has faded? What matters?
We’re so close to the airport, we’re there in record time. I watch my men take our luggage. I hold Nicolette’s hand and we walk toward the tarmac.
“Can I ask you who was on the phone?”
Maybe the first step to authenticity’s not hiding anything anymore? Maybe the first step is… telling the truth? No matter what the consequences may be?
I’ve been preoccupied knowing I had to find Lyam, that I had to find who was responsible here.
“You know I have men stationed at La Maison.”
She nods. My men put our luggage away and Louis opens the door for us.
“There are rumors—”
The sudden bang of a gunshot interrupts us. On instinct, I push her to the ground as I draw my weapon, but my men are already on it. Footsteps pound on the tarmac, shouts erupt all around us. “Stay down,” I tell Nicolette.
I feel her trembling beneath me, but she lies still and silent.
“Are you hurt?” I whisper.
“A little scraped, I think, but otherwise okay. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fabien! Run!”
Run.
I yank her up and spin around to see a sleek gray car coming straight at us. I can tell from here it’s armored and loaded. Someone’s come to attack us.
I shoot at the wheels while I cover her with my body, but there’s nowhere to run. Rubber explodes when my bullet hits the target. “Go, go, get on the plane!” I shout to her, pushing her behind me as my men open fire.
It feels as if we’re swimming through honey. Everything’s slowed down to a crawl.
The door to the plane opens.
My men grab her and yank her inside.
I’m breathing a sigh of relief as my guards hit the windows and tires of the car when the sound of a second vehicle’s tires comes from behind the plane.
“Fabien! Let’s go!”
Thayer grabs me from behind and yanks me onto the plane. I stumble backward as the cabin door shuts just as Louis falls to the tarmac, crimson blood pooling around him. No.
“What the fuck was that?” I didn’t even know Thayer would be here. I turn around to see Nicolette behind him.
“I came as soon as I heard you were leaving,” he says, panting. “I’ll tell you everything, but first let’s make sure that we’re safe.”
I stumble forward as the plane begins accelerating. Nicolette jumps up from behind Thayer, who reaches for her, but she’s too fast. She peers out the window below me. “Get down!” I shout.
“Give me a gun!” she screams back.
Mon Dieu.
“You can’t shoot through the goddamn windows. I said get down!”
Thayer reaches her before I do and yanks her back to the floor.
“For crying out loud,” she mutters as we accelerate even faster and faster. The ground begins to fall away beneath us. “You men are all about the helpless female of the species, aren’t you?”
Thayer looks at me then back to her. “Oh, you have no idea,” he mutters.
I don’t bother to reply. I’m taking in every detail I can outside the window.
My men are barely recognizable from the height we’ve gained this quickly, but I can tell that Louis is being escorted to a medic.
They’ve managed to stop the vehicle, and I hope they’ve caught someone they can question.
We’ll know everything soon enough.
Finally, we’re completely airborne. Clouds float beneath us. The flight attendant sits near the cockpit. Her eyes are wide, and she’s breathing heavily, but I recognize her as someone that knows how we work. She’ll be fine.
I look to Nicolette. “You okay?” I ask her.
Her knees are scratched and bleeding. That was my fault. “I did this to you,” I say, shaking my head.
“I know, right? How dare you try to save my life and give me a teeny scrape in the process? It would’ve been much nicer if you’d let me get shot, or maybe remembered how to immediately teleport us out of there before they shot at us.”
Thayer looks at me and his brows go up, but he doesn’t say anything.
I should spank her for that, but not here.
“Good point.” I lower my voice. “Doesn’t mean you’re not getting spanked for being mouthy.”
Her jaw drops and she looks quickly to Thayer, who only shrugs and shakes his head. He’s not surprised. Nothing he wouldn’t do.
I draw in a deep breath and release it. “Okay then. Let’s sit down and tend to your scrapes.”
“And yours,” she says, pointing a wobbling finger in my direction. I look down at my shoulder, surprised to see I’m bleeding, and not a little.
“Shit. What happened there?”
“You got shot, brother,” Thayer says. “Sit your ass down and I’ll get the first aid kit.”
“I can’t believe you didn’t even know you got shot,” Nicolette says. Her voice wobbles. I look over at her in surprise, and notice when she blinks, a tear falls down her cheek.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“She’s in shock, man,” Thayer says. “She’ll be fine. Let’s get you taken care of.”
“Her first.”
“Goddamn it, Fabien, she scratched her knees. You’re fucking bleeding from a gunshot wound. Sit down and let me look at it before I knock your ass out first.”
He makes sense. “Fine.”
I sit down.
But I reach for Nicolette’s hand and give it a squeeze.
“Let’s get you out of these clothes.”
I shrug out of my suit coat and he helps me out of my shirt. Finally, as I’m starting to realize that I’m actually hurt, pain begins to throb at my shoulder.
“When did that happen?” I ask.
“When you were pushing her onto the plane.” Thayer puts antiseptic on a cloth and dabs it on my wound. I hiss out a breath and clench my teeth.
I pride myself on being observant. I can’t believe I was that fixated on getting her on the plane that I didn’t realize I was shot.
“It just grazed your skin. Whoever the hell it was is a terrible shot.”
“Good. Any idea who it was?”
Thayer’s lips thin. “No.”
I blow out a breath and grab the cloth, pressing it on my shoulder. I reach for the first aid kit and snag the tape, yank off long sections, and slap it onto my shoulder to make a shitty bandage.