Chapter 10 #2
“Cigar, sir?” The attendant appears at Graham’s side, lifting another, smaller silver tray to where he stands on the platform.
He has a thick Parisian accent and hasn’t given me any cause to be suspicious.
But I still watch him like a hawk every time he resurfaces.
“Oro Blanco Special Reserve,” he explains.
Graham meets my eyes and I roll them. What a life, to go from Inmate Baudelaire to sir in the span of mere days. “Don’t mind if I do,” he replies with a smirk.
The attendant cuts and lights it, handing it off before vanishing again.
Graham, half-dressed in an unbuttoned dress shirt and a pair of pinned slacks, draws some cigar smoke before letting it out in a puff.
It’s hard not to be charmed by the James Bond persona he’s crafted.
I’m not dead. The enigmatic way he commands a room, the posh English accent with a French lilt, and the surprising amount of sinewy muscle I’ve been very good about ignoring.
Add a tragic backstory, and I wouldn’t be surprised by any woman that falls for his charms.
But he’s also a criminal. The worst kind, too: he was raised with everything handed to him on a silver platter—sometimes literally, evidently—and he gave in to a life of crime because of boredom.
I know that if Raffaele hadn’t found me when he did, I’d either be dead or in prison by now.
The difference between Graham and I is that I would’ve broken the law for survival.
Not for bespoke suits and smoky cocktails and cigars that cost more than anything I’ve ever owned.
It would’ve been to keep the lights on and food on the table for people I love.
A choking gasp nearly tears from my throat but I tamp it down with great effort. No—not now, I think, silently cursing Mateo. If only he hadn’t prodded the wound at the worst possible time.
Later, when Graham is back in his original clothes, he whips out a wad of cash with a gold money clip that I’m sure I’ve never seen before. He doles out a hefty tip for the tailor and attendant before breezing out the door and into the mall.
“That’s really why you left this morning,” I say, hurrying to catch up with him. My head’s on a swivel again the second we’re shouldering into a crowd of luxury perfumes. Low chatter bounces off marble walls and floors, masking my voice. “For money? Are you serious?”
“Money makes the world go ‘round, Poppy.”
I frown at his profile. I’d thought at least one motivating factor for him was the ISA footing the bill for this entire ridiculous assignment. Dread shoots down my spine and I stiffen. Suddenly, this previously innocuous shopping trip doesn’t seem so meaningless anymore.
“They will send us funds if we need it to keep up appearances,” I shoot back, testing him.
Graham stiffens. “I won’t be touching that money with a ten-foot pole.”
“What’s the plan, then?” I reply, gaze flitting from a group of older women in Chanel and a tall, burly figure approaching several meters away on our nine o’clock. His sheer height and breadth gives me pause.
“The plan is…” he trails off and freezes for a half-step. Then, as if it was the plan all along, he grabs my elbow and steers me into the nearest boutique.
“Did I say you could touch me?” I wrench my arm from his steely grip the second we pass the threshold.
Everyone inside turns, their incredulous stares dragging from my boots to my t-shirt.
Probably not a typical look for someone shopping here.
This isn’t exactly a tourist destination—unless the tourists arrived on private jets.
Graham sends them a sparkling smile in return and pushes me backwards by my shoulders until we’re ensconced by a tall rack of fur coats. I swat his hands away, but he plants himself between me and the exit. A thin beam of light filters around his head. Everything else is shadows and fur.
“Need I remind you that I could kill you with a single thumb?” I whisper-yell.
He appears greatly amused by that. “We both know you’re here to protect me as much as you are to use me.”
An unwelcome flush of anger colors my cheeks. Pull it together, Sloane, I reprimand myself. Don’t let him get to you.
“Then may I ask when, exactly, you lost your mind?”
“The moment I first saw you, darling,” he replies with an easy wink, leaning backward out of the coats to peek through the shop window.
I jam two fingers into the base of his throat in response and smile as he makes a choking noise and sputters forward.
Only, now the impromptu coat alcove is markedly smaller, so much so that I can feel the heat radiating from his rumbling chest as he groans.
“Get out of my way,” I spit, curling my hands into fists to prevent myself from doing more damage.
“So violent,” he wheezes and rubs his throat. The words fan warmth across the side of my face, but I refuse to meet his eyes. “This is the thanks I should expect for keeping you safe, Agent?”
My eyes flick heavenward for a split-second. “I knew it. That’s the same guy from Colorado, isn’t it?” Then a dry laugh tumbles from my mouth. “And, trust me, I don’t need you to keep me safe.”
“He might be,” Graham replies, ignoring my second comment.
“I was right, wasn’t I? He’s one of your friends.”
“The problem is, I don’t have friends,” he whispers far too close to me. “If he’s coming for me, I’d rather not stick around and find out what he wants.”
My jaw tenses. “I’m going to get killed protecting you, and it will be your fault.”
A small bloom of relief spreads across my chest. At least it won’t be yours, the tiny voice taunts from the back of my mind.
“From where I’m standing, I’m the one helping you at present.” Graham leans away and peers out the window again, the stiffness deflating as he blows a breath out. “No matter—he’s gone.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I reply, scooting forward beside his shoulder—still too close for my liking—and scanning the crowd for a few moments.
Hoards of shoppers appearing like they’re on the way to Paris Fashion Week stride by.
From this angle, it seems as if our burly friend has moved on.
“We should stay in this store for a while longer to be careful, and then you’re going to tell me what’s going on,” I snarl in his ear, prodding my thumb between two of his ribs.
Too much muscle to cause much pain, I reluctantly note.
He makes a noise of discontent when I resurface from the coats. A stern-faced attendant is already halfway here from the opposite end of the boutique, squinting at the both of us, lips pulled into a thin line.
I begin rattling off an apology in French.
Graham steps in, hand extended, all the stress from seconds prior having vanished from his features. “Bonjour madame.”
Admirably, she’s only halted for a short while as she accepts the pleasantry. “You cannot do… that here,” she says, words thickly accented. “You must find un h?tel, yes?”
My eye twitches.
“Of course—please be assured, we meant no harm.” Graham drapes a heavy arm over my shoulders. “My wife and I are on our honeymoon, and we must’ve gotten swept up in the romance of Paris.”
My wife.
His words, spoken with complete confidence, echo through my brain as if it’s emptied itself out.
He could have said anything else. In fact, I would’ve preferred to vanish into the crowd outside and leave everyone here with a strange story to pick apart later.
He didn’t need to say anything at all. What is wrong with him?
I wonder if the Baudelaire family has an ancestral crypt, in addition to the estate. It would be the perfect place to hide his body.
The attendant clasps her hands together under her chin. “Oh, félicitations!”
“Merci du fond du c?ur,” Graham replies.
I watch in my peripheral as he pulls out the wad of cash from earlier.
“It would mean the world to me—” He stops to read her gold name tag.
“—Nathalie, if you would use this to help my wife. She was only just telling me how she’d like to update her wardrobe, and you seem to be a kind soul. ”
She gapes momentarily at the thick stack of €200 banknotes. “Oui, oui!”
“Graham?” I say, as Nathalie excitedly begins to usher me further into the store.
“Oui, mon coeur?”
“You’re dead, sweetheart.”