Nikolett nodded. “Assuming there won’t be a long-range sniper, can it be done?”
“No system is perfect. We’ve learned that.”
“But I’m still here. Still alive.”
Grigoris met her gaze, his brows beetled in worry. “As your friend, I want to say no.”
“As security minister?”
“As security minister, I think it’s an acceptable risk. We can’t remain on the defensive, or locked down, forever. Colum’s right, this might be our best chance.”
Nikolett smiled to mask the fear that made her stomach tight.
Grigoris turned back to his computer, rejoining the meeting.
“We’ve assessed, and taking out the Spaniard is my admiral’s top priority.”
“She’ll come to Paris?” Hande sounded surprised.
“Yes. We won’t put her in any overtly compromising situations, but we’ll come to Paris in hopes that once she’s spotted there, the Spaniard will take the intellectual property theft job.”
Nikolett went back to her email as Grigoris and the others discussed both her personal security and the trap they’d lay for the Spaniard.
Outwardly, she projected calm, but in the privacy of her own thoughts, she let the fear swirl and build until she was gripped by an illogical certainty that something terrible was going to happen to her in Paris.
Eric paced, tapping his phone against his thigh. It was the middle of the night, and the tail end of the storm that had lashedthe island for days had the wind howling without the muting rain to dampen the cries.
Maybe it was the restless night that had kept him from sleeping. Hours of tossing and turning, until he finally gave up and got up.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Nikolett. More precisely, Zombie Nikolett yelling at him for daring to assume that she would have expected him to protect and rescue her. Nikolett was smart and practical—she had her own security people, and probably her own set of “if I’m kidnapped” plans that had nothing to do with him.
Nikolett didn’t need his protection. Yes, the admiral of Hungary had used the fleet admiral’s resources to help with her security, but Nikolett didn’t need, or want, Eric to protect her.
She was surviving all on her own.
Which led him to thinking about Future Nikolett. That image kept changing. Sometimes there were no kids—he had no idea if she wanted any—and it was just the two of them sitting beside one another reading. Kissing in the rain and then laughing at how ridiculous they were.
Arguing about something that didn’t matter until the heat of anger turned into something else and they had hard, rough sex against the wall.
Eric threw himself into a chair, hunching forward with his phone in both hands. Elijah had insisted they’d come up with a plan for how he’d approach Nikolett in a way that could provide them both with “closure.”
But Elijah had insisted on talking more about why he’d deliberately avoided thinking about the future, what those first years as a missionary were like, and even why he’d first joined the Masters’ Admiralty. It had been days, and now that Eric knew what he wanted, he hated waiting to go after it.
It was late, he hadn’t slept, and the storm made him restless. A dangerous combination.
Slowly, he typed out a message he’d been composing in his head ever since it became clear that Elijah wanted to do more ground work on his understanding of relationships and his own ideas for the future before he reached out to her.
Eric had created his own private Nikolett Plan. Time to text.
Eric
I thought staying away meant protecting you. But I couldn’t stay away. Every time I see you, I feel like I’ll die if I don’t touch you.
He sounded like a melodramatic moron but didn’t delete the message the way he had a million times before.
Taking a deep breath, he hit send. It was late, but he assumed she’d have messages from him muted. Maybe she blocked his number and wouldn’t ever see it.
Either way, now that he’d started, he had to finish.
