Fuck.
The mall at least kept his mind—mostly—on other things, namely watching the crowd for threats.
“Lunch time?”she asked, keeping her voice low.They’d agreed to limit conversation in public since she wasn’t fluent in anything but English.Marseille was a large, culturally diverse city, but the less notice they attracted the better.
Unfortunately, going unnoticed wasn’t exactly his strongest skill.The obvious presence of a bodyguard played a large role in deterring attacks, so he usually went out of his way tonotblend in.But since this role required him to be as invisible as possible, he wore a pair of square-framed glasses, two days’ worth of stubble, and his hair flopping over his forehead instead of combed back.
He couldn’t make himself smaller, but he wasn’t exceptionally tall, nor was he super jacked.As long as he managed to be discreet in his surveillance, he shouldn’t stand out.Much.
His partner helped.How did she make this look so easy?“I could eat.”He followed the signs to the food court where they picked one of the busier lines.
“It’s not bad,” Natalie said ten minutes later, “but how is this supposed to be a taco?”She took a bite of what was basically a flat grilled burrito stuffed with a combination of fillings and sauce that weren’t necessarily Mexican inspired at all.More like a hot, grilled tortilla wrap than what Americans knew as tacos.
He chuckled, relaxing a little now that they were tucked into a secluded corner of the dining area, his back to the wall, half shielded by a potted rubber tree.“No idea, but these shops are everywhere.Not as popular as pizza, though.The Marseille train station even has a pizza vending machine.”
Her eyes widened behind the thin gold frames of her glasses.“Wow.I wonder if it’s any good?”
“I’ve never been desperate enough to try it.”Part of him wanted to risk it with her, though.Good or bad, he somehow knew she’d make the experience more interesting.
She sipped her Orangina.“I’d love to get one for the office, but it could be dangerous having pizza anytime I wanted.”
No,shecould be dangerous.He smiled and nodded, pretending that he wasn’t tearing himself apart on the inside, and attacked his meal, while surreptitiously keeping tabs on the other shoppers.
“You ready for me to get started?”Natalie nodded toward the bag on the chair to her left, which held the refurbished PC laptop he’d bought.
No.“Go for it.”
After lunch, Natalie and Ford took another trip through the superstore for groceries.They’d planned some simple meals she could help him cook to repay Henri for doing all the food prep the past few weeks.
Now, she watched the scenery change outside the car window as they left the suburbs of Marseille and drove into the rolling hills of the countryside.The mall had almost felt like being back in the US, but with everything written in French.
If she were here for a different reason, she’d love to explore Marseille and its port.She wanted to hike around Les Calanques—a series of coves in the high cliffs above the Mediterranean.She’d seen amazing photos in a guidebook at the farmhouse.She also wanted to take the train to Cannes and Nice.See Antibes.Explore Monaco.
Maybe someday, if she made it out of this mess.
She tapped her fingers on the lid of the laptop Ford had bought her.On the gardening forum, there’d been a short exchange between Emma and the Night Herons’ computer expert Dallas, but only to make contact and establish private communication in an anonymous chat room.Natalie had left a message of her own, and then hit the news sites to read everything she could find involving her team.
Everyone was safe, the bad guys were dead.
So was she.
Thathad been fucking surreal.Reading about her own demise.
It had been interesting and enlightening, but hadn’t left her with any clues to who was after her now.She just had to scrape up the patience to wait for a response from Emma or Dallas.She hadn’t told Ford that other people on the team might see her message.He didn’t know she had a team at all.Didn’t need to.
Lying to him felt icky, but necessary.And one of many reasons she needed to quit thinking about their kiss two days ago.
Yeah, right.If she had that kind of willpower, it never would’ve happened in the first place.
“How long do you think it’ll take to get a response?”Ford asked, breaking into her reverie.
“No idea.”She drank the dregs from the bottle of Orangina she’d bought at lunch, savoring the sweetness.“When we’re in open communication, we don’t always monitor the forum.We use a different one to communicate with some of our informants, but she’ll probably check this one at the same time, just to be safe.It’s a habit.”
Hopefully.If the team had been forced to operate even more underground, they’d probably be using alternative methods of contact more frequently than they used to.The situation sucked overall, but in this case, it might work in her favor.“I’ll take a look before bed tonight.”If she could wait that long.
At least Ford had caved and bought a hotspot they could use anonymously from the farmhouse.She’d convinced him it was safer if she didn’t have to leave the house just to find Wi-Fi.Probably true, but she also didn’t want to wait until he was willing to take her to town again.And she wanted to be able to do more research without him hovering.
“Speaking of bed…” She looked at him.Even in profile, he was ridiculously handsome.
