to getting some answers.”
“Whatever Contessa Montecalvo has, we’ll get it from her. Trust me.”
“I do,” she replied.
Harvath looked at her and she looked back. They held each other’s gaze for a fraction of a second, possibly for even a beat too long, and then broke it off—both at the same time.
They were in tune and it spoke to a deepening, potentially dangerous attraction. You couldn’t work with someone, particularly not in an environment as deadly as theirs, when emotions were likely to cloud judgment. It was a recipe for disaster.
Harvath tried to compose himself. There was a lot to like, maybe even love, about the Norwegian ninja, but Lara’s memory was still so fresh, so painful. Besides, they had a job to do. He needed to reassert his professionalism.
“The only thing this picnic is missing,” said Sølvi, interrupting his thoughts, “is a great bottle of wine.”
“Probably for the best,” he responded. “I haven’t exactly been the picture of responsible alcohol consumption lately.”
She looked at him again, her face softer. Kinder. Empathetic. “Because of losing your wife?”
It was a topic she had wanted to raise while they were driving, but hadn’t out of fear of ripping open what she knew was a very raw wound.
Harvath looked at what she had purchased for them to drink. “Mineral water?”
She nodded and joked, “After paying for the boat, it’s all I could afford.”
He smiled. “Let’s open it.”
She did, and after retrieving two glasses from the Riva’s galley, poured.
“Cheers,” said Sølvi, raising her glass. “To those we’ve lost.”
“To those we’ve lost,” Harvath replied, clinking glasses.
As he took a sip, he wondered if he would have said no to some wine. Here he was at Lake Garda, on a boat that had to have cost at least half a million dollars, and in the presence of a woman who, on a scale of one to ten, was a fourteen. Not many drinkers who stepped off the wagon did so under such unique circumstances.
“I remember you getting out the whiskey at Landsbergis’s. How bad is your drinking?” she asked, gently. “Is it a problem?”
“Is it a problem? No,” he admitted, appreciating her perceptiveness. “Is it too heavy, too often, and too much? Probably.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
Jesus, she was direct. Maybe that was the Scandinavian in her, but it was uncomfortable to have it put to him so bluntly like that. Nevertheless, he appreciated her honesty and attempted a smile. “I’m going to enjoy this nice, full-bodied mineral water and then focus on business.”
“Good,” she responded, taking a sip of hers. “Just know that I’ve been on the other side. Not alcohol, but similar things. If you ever want to talk, I’m here.”
He wouldn’t have guessed by looking at her that she’d had a substance abuse problem—or any kind of problem for that matter. Because of her looks, he wanted to graft a perfect story, a fairy tale onto her. He knew that was wrong. He knew that everyone you met was grappling with something—maybe not as rough as a drug problem, but something.
We all have our crosses to bear. What’s more, we wouldn’t trade ours for someone else’s. If you and ten other people walked into a room and all laid their crosses on the table, everyone would be walking out with the same cross they walked in with.
He supposed that was because we got used to ours, but it was more than that. Our cross, we realize, helps define who we are. How we wrestled with our problems, how we battled the demons that often accompanied them, was what built character. And as much as her straightforwardness had unsettled him, it was good to have that reminder.
She was a good person. The world was full of people who would tell you what you wanted to hear. The valuable ones—the people worth holding on to—were those who told you what you needed to hear.
There was a lot to this Norwegian ninja. Still fjords, apparently, ran quite deep. On the list of things he found attractive, he had never really considered wisdom. Not, at least, until now.
She appeared to have taken a lot from her experiences. It added something to her, made her even more interesting. He wanted to know where she had been, what she had seen, and the lessons she had learned. But now wasn’t the time.
Now, they needed to focus on the Contessa. Because if they didn’t get this right, nothing else was going to matter.
CHAPTER 40
Tatiana Montecalvo—the Contessa—had indeed