Eric stood in the opening, his massive body backlit by the streetlights while the moonlight added silver to his hair.
For one delicious moment, she was afraid.
Remi took another step away from her. Much to her disappointment, she didn’t know the French word for coward, so she settled for a scathing glance.
Then Eric took a hesitant half step toward her.
Iacob had pushed to his feet and was headed for her, clearly intending to put himself between her and the threat. She held up a hand in a stop gesture, and he detoured, circling to stand behind rather than in front of her. Nikolett heard him murmuring a status update to Grigoris.
Eric took another half step but faltered. His body language shifted from unstoppable force to…unsure?
He ran a hand through his hair before shoving his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched.
“Er… Hi.”
Hi?
Nikolett narrowed her eyes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nikolett looked pissed.
Beautiful, smart, and pissed.
She wore a wrap dress in a deep blue that set off her pale skin and hair. In contrast, her eyes seemed darker than normal. But maybe that was because she looked like a queen about to render judgment. Not just a death sentence but a fitting punishment that ended in his death.
In retrospect, chasing her harco in order to find her probably wasn’t a good idea, but he hadn’t been in the mood for talking and negotiating with her people for half an hour in order to see her. The response to his arrival seemed extreme, though he appreciated how seriously they were taking her security.
They’d run, so he’d chased.
Elijah would probably want to talk about that. Luckily the good doctor was halfway back to America.
Eric rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off some of the fear-based anger that made his muscles tight. They’d had her sitting right in front of a big glass window. It would have been far too easy to shoot her in the head.
He’d been perfectly calm and reasonable on the way from the airport to the center of Paris, but that had poofed out ofexistence when Regina told him that they’d accessed the security feed from the building across from the hotel as part of their own pre-arrival security check and reported that Nikolett and Victoire were having dinner.
The image from the security camera showed Nikolett sitting in profile in the window, which glowed with light compared to the darkness of the night. As if she were on a stage.
By the time Eric’s car pulled up, she’d been moved, but he had seen the empty table with the haphazardly pulled-out chairs and panicked. Regina had told him to wait while she went in and talked to everyone, but then he’d seen Iacob moving at a fast walk, rounding the corner of the hotel, and took off after him.
Now, two French knights were staring at him wide-eyed, Iacob was assessing him coldly, and Nikolett’s narrow-eyed, pissed expression made him want to get on his knees and pleasure her until she forgot to be irritated.
But first, apologize. Acknowledge that the state of their relationship wasn’t his decision to make, and then ask her to have dinner with him.
“Fleet Admiral,” she said coolly.
Not a great start.
“Can we talk in private?”
“No.”
The first stirrings of irritation rumbled through him but he shrugged them off.
“Please.”
“No.”
