Nick smiled.“Not a problem.It’s two floors.”
But she knew what that elevator out of order meant.She skirted the stairwell and, yup.There it was.A mess of shopping, at least ten plastic shopping bags.She bent to gather them all up.
“My next-door neighbor is an elderly lady.I told her that if she did heavy shopping and came home to find the elevator out of order to just leave her shopping here and I’d carry it up for her.It’s happened a couple of times.”She hefted the bags.“Feels like she did her weekly shopping this evening.”
“Whoa.Let me.”He took all the bags, holding them in one big hand.She protested that she could take half, but he didn’t even answer, just started up the stairs.On her landing, he turned to her.“Now what?Where do we leave these?”
“On this floor, two doors down.Just leave them at the door.”
“No one will steal them?”
“Nah.It’s a nice building and everyone is fond of Mrs.Da Costa.She’s pretty generous with her baked goods.No one will steal her shopping.What?”
Some strange fleeting expression crossed his face as he put down the shopping in a neat pile to the side of Mrs.Da Costa’s door.
Nick straightened.“Well, this is really new to me.I’ve spent the past couple of years in places where if you meet a neighbor in the corridor, the first thing you do is you check his hands for a gun or a knife.My place in London is really upscale, but I have no idea who my neighbors are.Wouldn’t recognize them.Certainly no one does anyone any favors.This is nice.”
She smiled, recognizing what he was telling her.That despite his success, despite his money and power, he led an empty life.Certainly emptier than hers.Of course, it was hard to live in Naples and not make human connections.Neapolitans basically forced themselves into your inner circle, though she, too, had empty spots.
“You should live in Naples.Or at least somewhere in Italy.”She’d spoken thoughtlessly and immediately cringed.He could interpret that in a number of awkward ways.He could think she was questioning his life choices, choosing to live in terrible places.Or he could think she was damning his social skills.Or—and this was the worst—he could think she was encouraging him to move to Italy on the basis of a nice dinner.
Which she wasn’t.Of course she wasn’t.That would be crazy.
“I really should.”Nick smiled down at her.“Be a big improvement.”
She opened her door, wondering what was going to happen.Would he accept a cup of herbal tea and leave?Would they kiss?Would?—
And then she didn’t have to wonder at all because he kissed her, and the world stopped.
Neapolitan streets werenarrow and twisted.George had a FIAT 500, small and compact so he could navigate the streets.Garin had a huge SUV, but he managed just fine.George had put a tiny chrome tracker on the left back light of the SUV, almost completely invisible.It was small and didn’t have much of a range, but it would do its job.
George kept himself three streets behind.But soon it was clear where Garin was headed.To Parker’s apartment on the Vomero.
He was driving Parker home.Was he going to spend the night?Parker was incredibly picky.Everyone said so.And from what George could tell she hadn’t had any lovers.She wouldn’t fuck Garin the night she met him, would she?
George didn’t have to start tracking Garin right away.
Garin wasn’t even starting the contract until Monday, so about the only things he could do was study the Consulate’s floor plans and the organization chart.George was sitting pretty.The floor plans sure as hell weren’t going to help find the leak, which was in Caroline Munro’s phone, and his own bio was almost ridiculously uninformative.
Though George had no reason to track Garin so early, here he was, caught in the trap of his own obsession.He kept an eye on the GPS app glowing faintly on his phone’s screen as his FIAT made its way through darkened streets, casting arcs of light against the stucco facades, watching cafès shuttering for the night.
And then the teardrop on the screen stopped.
George slowed, coasted, then pulled into a side street, and there it was.Garin’s big SUV.Right in front of Parker Donovan’s building.George knew where she lived.He’d driven by dozens of times, working up the courage to stop by.I was in the area…
But she probably wouldn’t let him in the door.
She let Garin in the door.
George’s throat closed.
Parker had refused him so many times.Almost a caricature of rejection.Cool and dismissive.And here Nikolai Garin shows up at a Consulate reception and she goes out to dinner that same evening and they were probably fucking right now.
George’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, until his knuckles turned white.He sat frozen in his small FIAT until a passing scooter buzzing too close to him snapped him back to reality.
He had done everything right.Everything.He had crafted his new life, piece by piece.Clothes that finally fit him and looked good, a wallet thick enough to prove he wasn’t just a petty functionary.He had risked far more than Garin.Risked prison, risked ruin.Yet—who was rewarded?
Not George.Never George.
