Chapter 12 Scholar’s Mate
PARIS
I’ve never had to deal with this before, during a job. Attraction. To a man. A mark’s rival.
Faust.
Fuck.
How do normal people handle this? Like, if I wasn’t me, would I proposition a random Parisian and bang this virus out of my system?
Not that I think that would work. Sex isn’t really that great, the few times I’ve tried it.
It requires so much acting, and I was always thinking about the early call-time I had the next morning or what to do with my hands.
All for what? A man asking if I came after he rubbed the inside of my thigh for thirty seconds?
Obviously, I can’t date-date someone else to get over this because…
I am going to date someone else. At least, Faust will think I am.
Bernard will also think I am. Most of the world, really.
Which brings me back to my most important rule: No boyfriends.
It’d been the first cat-burglar bylaw I’d made for myself, long before no cops (learned that lesson fast in New York) and no lawyers (Renata dated a legal aid, and he personally taught us that 75 percent of men who work in the legal field are American Psychos).
What I do is like a Matryoshka doll. On the outside, there’s Cat Cromwell, ex-model, fashion influencer, the girl who people date.
Inside is Arcadia Alden, the real me, who has a family and breaks hearts.
Two women, one body. And one of those girls is always dating, so, the other one gets to take the back burner.
It’s nice. It isn’t, like, sad or anything. Rich men are red flags and trash arranged in the shape of people, and while Faust might dislike the same things as me and have similar opinions and a moral code he shouts about, I’m sure he’ll remind me why I have my rules by the time we leave Paris.
Then there’s the Bernard of it all.
To my absolute surprise, he messages me while I’m walking to my hotel room.
When can I see you again?
I bite my lip, already angry. Surprise, surprise, Bernard doesn’t mention hitting Christine’s car.
You know, the woman who I also work with, who’s already going to have to prove herself to the entire world as an athlete?
Whose first race in Formula 1 he toddler-tantrumed?
I hit him with a two-word text—hello stranger—to, one, dodge the question until I’m unpacked and, most importantly, remind him that waiting days to message me isn’t going to fly.
My phone vibrates in my pocket as I shuffle my key card over the lock into my room.
Someone’s desperate. The lock flashes red.
“Please don’t be like this,” I whisper at the third angry beep in a row.
This has to be jet-lag-induced user error, and my cramped legs don’t feel like walking down the many Parisian staircases to the front lobby for a new key.
Scowling, I dump my shoulder bag onto my suitcase and give the lock another, more authoritative swipe.
It beeps green. A moment later, the door next to mine opens.
I almost fumble the key card.
Faust looks surprised to see me. As if he didn’t hear me trying and failing to open my door, and simply picked this exact moment to wander out of his lair for fresh air and pain au chocolat.
His brow is furrowed, lips parted, face flushed; it takes considerable effort to not full-body sweep his outfit.
“Cat,” he breathes out. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
Everything inside me stops in its tracks—brakes thrown, tires squealing, smoke everywhere.
“Well, here I am,” I squeak, then clear my throat.
I can talk to him. I am talking to him. I am great at talking to men I dislike, and he may look like this, but I do not like him.
“Sorry, do we casually converse now? If you’re going to yell at me, you’ll need to wait until I’m on the clock so I can bill the team. ”
Three seconds tick by, as if Faust’s counting down dynamite in his head. Then one corner of his mouth twitches. “Do you want me to yell at you?”
“Can you say that in front of Mei? She’d love it.”
“I’d rather say it in front of Bernard.”
“Oh my god, can you just drop that?”
“I will if you do.” He tilts his head, eyes flashing. “You aren’t going to get what you want with him, if you’re into that.”
“Into what?”
“Dominance.”
“Oh, you know that for a fact?” I frown. “Is that why you’re obsessed with him?”
His cheek flexes. He sort of does that often—holding back.
Whatever he’s thinking, how he’s feeling, words trapped behind his deep-pink lips.
And momentarily, my heart thuds with the fear that I have accidentally stumbled into a very convoluted Challengers situation, but then Faust says, “Huh. So you do like that,” and I realize nope.
He’s smirking because he’s thinking about—looking at—me.
“I do not like anything,” I say firmly. “Besides working and being a worker and filing HR complaints. Goodbye.”
“Cat.”
The long side of the key card pinches at the inside of my palm.
I’m gripping it like it can pop the bubbles swirling behind my belly button.
Maybe this hotel-branded chunk of plastic could explain to me, in detail, why I like it when this particular man talks back to me.
When he says my name like he’s disappointed in me and it delights him. “Yes?”
“Let’s get dinner. Unless he’s meeting you here? It’d be a shame if he couldn’t show you his family’s stomping grounds.”
And there’s my reminder: Faust is just as bad as all the rest. Since he name-dropped me on the broadcast, my social media has been blowing up.
Mei has given me permission to mention work, and while that’s nice, it’s my family who needs an explanation.
And I still haven’t had time to actually talk to any of them on the phone.
“Okay, I get it.” I give him my brightest I work for you smile. “I will see you tomorrow. Pop a melatonin, chill out, and we’ll regroup with Christine and Eddie in the morning.”
But then Faust’s eyes flick to somewhere over my shoulder, and I’m looking, too.
At a tall hotel worker holding a positively gigantic bouquet of pale apricot roses. “Ms. Cromwell?” the man says. “These are for you. They’re Juliets.”
The Juliets look like they’re almost falling apart as he holds them out to me; they’re the most ridiculous, genetically modified roses I’ve had the misfortune of seeing in person.
A single wild outdoor breeze would blast their petals apart.
Stunned, I take them, then find the white card stuck among the swirling, biblically accurate angel blooms.
Really, though. Japan?
xo Bernard
I take a deep breath and get hit with the roses’ faint vanilla scent.
I hadn’t texted him back quickly enough, and he sent me up…
roses. Scented roses. And how did he know where I’m staying?
Theoretically, he could’ve stalked Stark-Benzin’s socials for the fashion week event, and Christine might’ve posted something.
I think Bernard’s going for Pretty Woman billionaire-who-knows-everything-about-you intrigue, but God, he’s so creepy.
“Mr. Baudelaire wanted to know if you had a message back to him?” the worker asks politely.
With all the crackling energy of an engine turning over, Faust’s gaze shifts, tracking my hands as I hug the bouquet close. Then our eyes meet. He’s waiting for me to speak first. His cheek is bowed again, but he’s waiting for me to take the lead.
“Thank you,” I tell the delivery man. It isn’t his fault this is a nuclear bomb situation. “You can tell Mr. Baudelaire that this was… very sweet.”
Faust exhales the tiniest, almost inaudible breath of a laugh.
“Sorry, we were just going to dinner!” I beam, then I’m grabbing Faust’s arm and yanking him toward the cracked door to his hotel room.
He is not ruining this for me, and I don’t have the time or energy to handle my key card deciding it doesn’t want to work again.
And then we’re in his room. Me. And Faust. In a large Parisian studio with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.
Alone.
We’re both pin-drop quiet. Only when I hear footsteps on the other side of the closed door, do I drop the bouquet on the long console table flanking the entryway and let my tense shoulders relax.
Faust meanders behind me, his arms still crossed. There’s a smirk on his face that wasn’t there before. “Roses.”
“Don’t.”
“I wouldn’t get you roses.”
“And why not? What would you get me?”
Faust goes to the mini fridge, grabs a pale green drink and cracks the lid. Something citrus flavored, maybe. “Tell me if I’m wrong first,” he says without looking my way.
Heat spreads across the bridge of my nose. “They’re… not my favorite.”
With most of him turned toward the fridge, I only see his half smile in profile, one corner of his mouth and his crinkled eyes. “Mmhm.”
“They’re just kind of—” I should not be saying this, fuck. “Basic.”
“I know.”
“But it was really sweet of him, and I love them.”
“Sure. What’s your favorite?”
“Cheater, it’s your turn. What would you get me?”
Straightening up, he takes a swig of the drink, though not before offering it to me. I decline. “Poppies.”
“Like… from The Wizard of Oz?”
He sets his drink down and goes to the sink. There are two glasses next to an old steel tea kettle, and he runs one under the faucet before holding it my way. “Yes. Drink.”
I take it, frowning. I don’t think I’m thirsty until I take a polite sip—then it’s like my body remembers I was on a plane for a very long time, and I finish it off.
Faust watches for a moment, an indecipherable expression on his face, and I can’t tell if he wants me to ask why poppies or if he wants me to drop the conversation or if I care what he wants, even a little bit.
I think I do, slightly. Maybe I should find an amorous Parisian. This is dangerous.