He turned and looked right into Flicka’s eyes while he said to Wulfram, “No matter what happens, I’ll find Flicka, and I’ll keep her safe. You can count on me.”
Tears rose in her eyes, and the room turned watery.
Because she knew he couldn’t.
Not even Dieter, the archangel of her dreams, CEO of the private firm Rogue Security, could keep her safe from Prince Pierre Grimaldi, the head of a whole country or would be soon, and the owner of an army and a Secret Service.
Dieter hung up the phone. He asked her, “Where is your passport?”
Flicka swallowed hard, trying to moisten her cotton-lined throat. “In the safe in Pierre’s suite. In the bedroom.” She gestured at the safe set into Dieter’s wall. “It’s in the same place as your safe.”
“What’s the combination?”
“Twelve, nine, seven. That was the year the Grimaldi family overran the Prince’s Palace and took control of Monaco, 1297. Pierre always uses the same one.”
Dieter stared at her for a moment. “Okay, then. So that’s the combo. I need to talk Wulfram into changing the meeting to Pierre’s suite so I can get your passport. And I have to concentrate on not murdering that son of a bitch when I lay eyes on him.”
“Please don’t go,” Flicka said. “Let’s just leave. Let’s run. We can go somewhere, anywhere else.”
Dieter sat on the bed beside her. “We will, but we need to go to Paris, first. You need to meet with the lawyers who drew up your prenup so you can start divorce proceedings, if that’s still what you want to do?”
“God,yes. After last night—” Flashes of Pierre’s hands on her throat, a knife near her neck as he shoved her dress up, and the stink of burning gunpowder as she sprinted out of the suite as fast as she could. “Heforcedme. He held aknifeto my throat while he dragged me into the bedroom. Heshotat me. If he were a better shot, I’d bedead.I want that assholein jail,I want tokill him,but that’s not going to happen. Divorce is theleastof what I want to do to him.”
Bitter bile rose in her throat, and her head pounded harder. Her temples split with pain.
“I just want out. I don’t want to ever see him again.” She pressed her hands to her temples. “The whole night keeps replaying in my head. Every damn detail. Every smell of his weird smoky cologne and spilled whiskey. Every flash of light off the knife. Every rasp of his zipper. The way he opened his mouth so far when he screamed at me that the cords on his neck stood out. The way Quentin wouldn’t look at me, just stared straight ahead as he yanked me toward the bedroom. Every damned second of it.”
Dieter opened his hand between them on the sheets. “I should have been there. I shouldn’t have let you confront him alone.”
Flicka grabbed his hand, trying to hold on, trying to stay in the room with him rather than live through every terrifying second of the night before that was streaming through her head. Her joints creaked, and the scabs over her knuckles stretched painfully. “I wouldn’t have let you.”
“I’ll never fail you again,” Dieter said. His strong fingers wrapped around hers.
“You didn’t fail. It wasn’t you. I’m just shocked that he did any of it. I didn’t know he could. The violence, the rage, he shocked me. I’d never seen anything like that in him before.”
But she had. Pierre had punched one of his Secret Service agents in the mouth a few months before when he had fired him, and he had grabbed a paparazzo by the throat when he’d come too close to Flicka only a few weeks ago. And there had been other times.
Dieter said, “It’s shocking, when someone you trust, someone you love and admire, reveals themselves to have such evil in them.”
He must be talking about his ex-wife, the woman who had stolen millions from him and run off with another guy. “Yeah. It’s shocking.”
“It’s normal to want to run away, but you’ll have to stand and face him eventually, probably in court.”
Flicka tried to stop thinking, to feel nothing but the warmth of his hand around hers. “I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“Of course. But I’ll be there with you. I won’t let you be alone with him ever again.”
“I’m scared.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“I hate him.”
“I won’t let him touch you.”
“I just want torun.”
“And we will, but first I have to steal your passport, find out what they know, and spread a little disinformation. Last night, I ordered an enormous breakfast from room service, enough for two, but only on one plate. It should be here any minute.”
“I cannot imagine eating anything. I drank too much last night.”
“I need you to eat, to regain your strength and heal. And then don’t open the door for anyone at all, no matter what. Keep the television on very low, if at all. Make sure no one could hear it, even if they’re standing right outside and pressing their ear to the door.”
New fear stunned her. “Do you think he’s going to send someone?”
“I don’t know, but—” Dieter trailed off, thinking. “It’s too risky to leave you alone. I’m going to have someone stay in the living room. Don’t talk to them. Don’t make a sound. I don’t want even him to know you’re here if we can manage it. But I want you to have a last line of defense. I’ll be back as soon as I can, hopefully with your passport.”
