“But I did,” Bastien agreed, “so he went back to Geneva after a few days, and I stayed, trying to figure out what you were up to. Partly, it was curiosity, I suppose, but I wanted to see you.I wanted to know that you were all right. I only meant to see you for a while, maybe not even talk to you, but just make sure you were okay.”
“But you turned us over to him. You could have just left Las Vegas and never mentioned that you had seen us. He was right there, outside the courthouse, waiting for us.”
Bastien set his glass on the table and glared at it. “I didn’t tell him. He had Russiangoons watching me, too. I didn’t realize it, and they followed me there. In the Monaco, they tried to take you, to drag you outside to the Las Vegas street, shoot you, and be done with it. I saw them running at you. Flicka saw them and warned you, and you two ran.”
Raphael glanced into his drink, stifling his reaction. The goons at the Monaco Casino had been Russian bratva men gunning forhim,not Monegasque Secret Service agents trying to kidnap Flicka.
When he’d heard the crash of her drinks’ tray and glanced over his shoulder, their pursuers had been looking at him, not Flicka.
His world flipped upside down.
“So, Piotr Ilyin already knows I’m here.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Does Ilyin know about Flicka?”
“Interpol found Gretchen Mirabaud’s passport, too. They told Valerianyou were married to her. In Las Vegas, it looked like you were just card sharking until I noticed the Swiss woman named Gretchen. She was never there without you, and you were never there without her. I’d never met Flicka and didn’t recognize her as Friederike von Hannover. I should have. Anaïs would have known her in a heartbeat.”
“How is your daughter?” Raphael asked. When he’d gone into hiding,Anaïs had been in pre-school.
“She’s fine. She’s interning for an entire year at the UN instead of joining the bank. That’s Friederike von Hannover’s bad influence.” Bastien was smiling. “At least Anaïs won’t be caught up in this.”
“I saw her at the Shooting Star Cotillion events. She’s beautiful.”
“Of course, she is. All my daughters are beautiful. It’s too bad all of them insist on wearingthose chunky glasses. They’re all as near-sighted as bats.”
“Not the worst affliction.”
“No, it’s not. They read incessantly. You can’t have a conversation with them about anything because they will cite facts and destroy your argument in minutes.” His smile grew fond as he stared into his drink. “They’re formidable.”
“I still don’t know how you found out we were in Las Vegas at all,” Raphaelsaid.
Bastien grinned around his drink. “You caused quite a stir when you proposed to her on that airplane. People uploaded the video of it. Interpol is still looking for you, and their facial recognition software matched your face to their files. The software picked up the alert but not the cause. They almost got you at the gate. They couldn’t see what the charge was, so they didn’t act.”
Raphael frowned. The horror, anger, and pain in Flicka’s emerald eyes had devastated him. He’d been losing her. He’d felt her revulsion and that she was slipping farther away from him with every passing second. It had been the most impulsive of proposals, perhaps the most impulsive thing he’d ever done, perhaps theonlyimpulsive thing he’d ever done.
She had thought he didn’t love her enoughto propose marriage.
But he had always loved her more than his heart could hold.
So he’d proposed.
And the cameras had come out, and the videos had flown into the ether, and Interpol had notified his father.
Raphael asked, “And then what happened?”
“We got word of it. After that, it was easy to find out where your ticket went. You even used your real name, for God’s sake.”
Raphael sippedthe whiskey, which was smooth and nearly sweet. Flicka probably could have identified it. He suspected scotch from the smoke in the aroma and on his tongue. “It was an emergency. I had to get Flicka out of Europe and to Nevada.”
“I can’t believe you proposed marriage toFriederike von Hannover,” Bastien said, looking over his glass at Raphael. His dusky blue eyes narrowed with his smile.
“Imeant it,” Raphael said. “I’m not sure she meant it when she said yes.”
“So are you going to marry her?”
“Things are a little up in the air right now, like whether any of us, including Alina, will survive the week.”
