“No.”
“What about up there?” He motioned toward the staircase to the second floor.
“No. I'll be back shortly.” She fled, glad that her customers' arrival had bought her time to think.
Except, no. It turned out to be impossible to think while selling perfume withFBI, FBIchanting within her head. Her brain kept plotting routes of escape as if . . . What? She was going to sprint down the pavement outside? Squeal away on her Vespa scooter? Disappear to another country with funds she didn't have?
She didn't need an escape route. She'd done nothing wrong. Nothing, that is, other than mistake him for an allergic groom. Had sheactuallymopped shower gel off of his jaw and neck? Had sheactuallyspun him around, placed her hands on his back, and tried to shove him out of her store?
Indeed.
What could he possibly want?
Right before the ladies departed, a young woman arrived. She was buying a gift set for her sister's birthday and had lots to say about how her sister claimed she'd bathe in Gemma's perfume if she could, that's how much she loved it.
Bathing in perfume? See. Hard to focus.
She wrapped the purchase and bagged it. The young woman left.
Gemma locked the shop's front door and flipped the sign fromOpentoClosed. Steadying herself with a deep inhale and exhale, she walked to the back of her shop.
She kept her store uncluttered and rigorously organized. But the area in the rear was much moreher. . . colorful and cozy. Seeing it through Agent Camden's eyes, she noted the funny photos of herself mounted on the corkboard that celebrated her adventures, friends, and travels. A buffet of visual inspirations intended to help her flesh out the perfumes she had in progress littered the table. Two throw blankets had fallen like empty parachutes where she'd left them.
Agent Camden sat on one of the rickety, girly chairs at the table. Though the chair was too small for his frame, he didn't look uncomfortable. On the contrary, he looked like a male model posing as a debonair businessman for aGQad.
Instead of sitting across from him—which would be too much like those police interrogation scenes in movies—she leaned against the kitchenette's counter.
He tracked her with cool, observant poise.
He had a rare kind of face. Hard in all the right places and soft in all the right places. Eyes of striking pale green. FBI agents didn’t make exorbitant salaries, but everything about this one read as rich. He wore his stylish dark blond hair short on the sides, semi-long and finger-combed up and back on top. He’d set his pea coat aside. His white business shirt and blue tie were both pristine except for a dark, wet spot on the collar left behind by the shower gel or the paper towels or both. His charcoal suit pants, which had likely cost more than her monthly rent, accentuated the lines of his lean torso and long legs.
She had a sudden, wild urge to pinch a wrinkle into his shirt, loosen his tie, and mess up his hair.
He pressed to his feet, unwilling, it appeared, to let her tower over him. As soon as he became the taller one, she felt crowded even though the table remained between his position and hers.
“We know,” he said, “that your cousin Cedric is trying to sell the recipe and manufacturing secrets behind the Rhapsodie perfume empire. And we know he asked you if your boyfriend might be able to find a buyer for those secrets.”
That set her thoughts back to whirling.Cedric. Rhapsodie. A dozen questions occurred to her. She caught one by the tail and voiced it. “How do you know that Cedric asked if my boyfriend could find a buyer?”
“We've been monitoring Cedric's phone.”
She tried to remember what, exactly, she'd said to Cedric in response to his inquiries. “I've been stalling Cedric to buy myself time to think what to do, but I have no intention of helping him sell Rhapsodie's secrets.” She pressed away from the kitchenette, crossing her arms and making herself as tall as her five-foot-five frame allowed. “Am I . . . in trouble?”
“No. But if Cedric misappropriates a trade secret used in foreign commerce, he'll be in violation of the Economic Espionage Act, which will put him in trouble with the Federal government.”
Stupid, greedy, selfish Cedric.
“As I'm sure you're aware,” he continued, “Cedric Bettencourt has been involved in numerous illegal activities, both in his native France and in the United States, since he graduated college nine years ago.”
“I'm aware.”
“Because your father was Cedric's accountant here in the States, your father's now serving time for embezzlement, tax evasion, and money laundering.”
Her temper flared, lifting her chin a fraction as her usual confidence returned in a rush. “Yes. And are you aware that it was the FBI that brought those charges against my father?”
“Yes.”
“And the FBI who has so far allowed Cedric—the kingpin behindallthe illegal activities—to go on living happy and free in the south of France?” Bitterness toward Cedric and the FBI had been lodged like a hot marble in her stomach for years. She'd never been able to digest it, never been able to get rid of it.
