Big Ben (See No Evil Trilogy #1) - Nana Malone Page 0,82
de Flore.”
I laughed. “Oh boy, I bet you’re feeding me again. I’m going to not fit in my clothes by the time I get back to London.”
“Oh, I think you’re going to fit just fine.”
He came back with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. “Here you go. This is the best hot chocolate in Paris.”
I took a sip and moaned. Sweet chocolate and whipped cream soothed my soul. “Oh my God. You are so right. Okay, where to next?”
“Well, we are in Paris, so obviously, the Eiffel Tower.”
I couldn’t help but squeak. Just the idea of it made me excited. “I know it’s touristy, but I really want to see it.”
“Are you sure? It’s a bit of a walk, but if you’re up for it, let’s go.” He pulled out two tickets to the Eiffel Tower.
“You ordered tickets early?”
“Of course. I don’t want to waste our day standing in a queue.”
And he was right. The queue for the Eiffel tower was insane. But we went straight to the top.
I didn’t care if it was cliché, the views alone were worth the disdain of the locals.
I couldn’t believe I was in Paris, taking in the sights with him, and it was so easy talking to him. I learned a bit about his life at Downing Street, his father, boarding school, and how he’d met Bridge and East and Drew. I didn’t think I’d met Drew yet. And then he talked about his friend who’d died, Toby. Their adventures, their misadventures. Mostly surface things. Maybe it hurt too much to talk about him. But he also talked about his cousin Roone, who had inadvertently married into a royal family.
“Your life is crazy.”
“Believe me, I know.”
We walked and talked and walked some more, and my feet were on fire. Luckily, we were close to L’Epoque, and we stopped to rest for a moment and have a coffee. Ben looked at me across the table and asked, “How are you liking your perfect Paris date so far?”
Date? “It is perfect.”
“I thought you’d appreciate a break before we hit the Louvre.”
I just grinned up at him. “You don’t have to do any of this you know.”
“I know. But at least I can show a girl a good time in Paris of all places.”
I shoved him. “There’s that ego again. And let’s be clear, the only reason I’m so happy is because of Paris.”
He rolled his eyes. “Yeah okay, if you say so.”
He knew the truth. I knew the truth. He was the reason. We could have been in any ordinary place, and I still would have been just as happy to be with him. Because I was completely done for.
23
Ben
She looked... happy. All day she’d been a chatterbox, asking me questions, wanting to know more about me and how I’d grown up. And for the first time in a long time, I felt light. Content. As if nothing could touch me.
But it’s not real, is it?
No, it wasn’t real. And I had to live with that because someone was following her. Because of me she was now a part of this. It was my fault, and there was no taking that back.
But for now, she looked content.
“Why were you hiding in that closet that night?”
She sighed. “I was hiding from Fenton.”
I frowned. “That git I pulled off of you at the bar?”
“The same one. He’s always too close. Too inappropriate. He always seems to find me.”
I ground my teeth, speaking through them as I tried to bite back the flare of anger. “Define ‘find you.’”
“It happened at a work thing for Dexter the first time, about a year and a half ago. I’d never seen him before, but we were making chit-chat. You know me. Then Dexter came and put his arm around me and... I don’t know, Fenton got this look on his face. It looked like fury. As if one of us had done something to piss him off. I didn’t really understand it.” She shrugged.
“Did he try to get closer to you?”
“Not really. But he started making Dexter work longer hours. Then one day he turned up at my office. And this was before Mom got really sick. I was leaving to go and have lunch with her, and there he was. He just happened to be there. He called it a happy coincidence and insisted on following me to lunch.”
I cursed under my breath. Every invented curse I could think of. “Hell, he stalked you.”