Verona, and my mind went to Shakespeare.Romeo and Juliethad taken place in Verona, as hadTwo Gentlemen of Verona,of course. It had always been on my dream list of places I would regret never going to.
“We’ve been dating for months,” Nicolai continued. “We were planning to marry within the next year, anyway. Just couldn’t decide on the time and place. So we eloped.”
Shock ripples fluttered through my system.
“Then why haven’t I seen her?”the sort-of in-charge guy, Ueli, growled.
Nico looked over his coffee cup at him. “As I proved last night, you’re irritatingly easy to slip away from.”
Ueli’s eyes widened, and his chin dropped when Nico said that. “Do you always turn your location services off when you are ditching us?”
“Only sometimes. Other times, I don’t have to do even that.”
It almost sounded like they were Nicolai’s jailers, not his employees. I knew they had to do their jobs and their jobs were probably difficult, but undertones filled this conversation that I didn’t understand.
Ueli rubbed his eyes. “And then?”
“Our decision to marry was sudden. When John decided on this impromptu bachelor party week in Las Vegas, I called Lexi to meet me here instead of planning an extravaganza.”
Ueli shook his head. “Something is very off. There’s no way you met heryearsago. We would have known.”
Nicolai spooned yogurt from his bowl. “What can I say? You didn’t.”
“I think you’ve never seen this girl before in your life, Nicolai.”
Adding details to this totally fabricated conversation seemed like my responsibility. “We’ve been planning to get married for months. I’d already bought the dress. It’s lying on that chair over there. You can’t buy a wedding dress on the spur of the moment.”
Ueli glanced at me, his eyes narrowed. “This is Las Vegas. Every pawn shop has a dozen wedding dresses.”
Dang, too true.“Okay, fine.Check the seams. That dress was fitted for me by the bridal shop. It takes months to order and tailor a wedding gown like that, which is why I went ahead and bought the dress, because we were planning a wedding but hadn’t fixed a date. My name is embroidered where the tag should be.”
The darned thing had finally come in handy as something other than a street performer costume.
Ueli squinted at Nicolai. “Look, you’re the principal. If this is what you want, I’m not going to question you, but an elopement iswildlyout of character for you, Nicolai. We haven’t had anyrequests for background checks for a woman for a long-term entanglement.”
Nico set down his coffee, the cup clinking on the saucer. “I didn’t need a background check for her.”
“You do more research than this when looking at a lunch menu. You study car models for six months before you buy one, and you own twenty-seven cars.”
Twenty-seven cars?Dang.Who needed twenty-seven cars?
Somebody who also owned two airplanes, obviously.
Nico set his coffee cup on its saucer with a glassy click. “My security is your job. My personal life is none of your concern.”
“Your well-being is my business. If this is a problem, say the word, and we will extricate you.”
Nico looked over at me. “What do you say, angel? Do I need to be extricated? Are youdangerous?”
Angel.
Gee, he was laying it on thick.
Okay, so I was obviously playing a character.
What would my character say in the situation?
Would she be a villainess badass who’d trapped him?
