Meet Me In Monaco - Flora Ferrari Page 0,15

It’s important that she stays safe, right?”

“Are you sure?” I can hear Frank’s brain seesawing from one side to the other like he’s still not sure he should even have made the call. “I know it’s short notice, and I’m sure you have work. I just don’t like the idea of her walking around on her own.”

“I do have work,” I confirm. “But because of that work, I also have access to a number of private suites and lounges where she won’t be bothered at all. She can last out the rest of her stay in luxury. And when I finish my work for the day – which is quite often after lunch, since I like some free time to mentally prepare for my evening meetings – I can show her around the city a little.”

I hear Frank exhale softly with relief. “You’d be doing me a real favor,” he says. “Even if she doesn’t get to do too much more, I think she just wants to be here and away from it all for the week, you know? You’re a lifesaver, you really are. Literally, after last night, too.”

“Don’t think of it,” I tell him. “I’m just happy to help. And to protect the reputation of my nation, of course.” The last part is a flourish made up on the spot. He needs some nice, convenient, easy excuse he can believe as to why an older man would want to look after his daughter. That with our shared alma mater, I hope, will be enough to persuade him not to look too much closer at the whole arrangement.

“Well, thank you,” Frank says. “I’ll let her know, and pass her your number so you can arrange everything. I’ve got a flight to get ready for, unfortunately.”

“Before you go – give me her number, too,” I say, clicking my pen. “I don’t want to miss her call or message. I’ll give it to my secretary so he can screen the calls and talk to her on my behalf if I’m in a meeting.”

Or, translation I will use it to message her first and meet sooner rather than later. I’m not making the same mistake twice.

With the number scrawled on a pad on my desk, and the phone call finished, I quickly press the intercom to call my assistant into the room.

“Sir?” he asks primly, pushing his glasses up his nose as he walks right up to the front of my desk, brandishing a pad of paper. I like Henri, he’s eager to work and eager to please. He wants to have my job in twenty years, and he’s starting at the bottom now. I don’t doubt that he will get there in eighteen.

“I need you to cancel everything on my schedule for the rest of the week,” I tell him. “I mean, everything. I won’t be free again until Monday.”

“Yes, sir,” Henri nods. To his credit, he doesn’t question me or try to argue. Maybe he should – after all, this is a lot of important work I’m pushing to the side. But he knows by now that I know what I’m doing. If this is a flight of madness, so be it. It’s nothing that I won’t be able to fix next week. “Would you like me to cancel them completely, or reschedule for next week?”

“Next week, or the week after,” I nod, thinking about how full my schedule already is. He’ll be hard-pressed to fit it all in, but I think he’ll manage it. “After I leave the office today, please don’t call me about anything. I’ll be ignoring my emails, too. Something important has come up, and it needs my full attention.”

“Yes, sir,” Henri nods again. He pauses, looking up from the notes he has neatly scratched on his paper. “Something exciting?”

I give him a slow smile, glancing out the window at the harbor. I think about the days ahead. “Yes,” I tell him. “Something very exciting indeed.”

Chapter Twelve

Liliana

My heart is in my throat as I wait for him, awkwardly standing by myself in the lobby. I cross my arms over my chest, then let them hang loosely by my sides so I’ll look more approachable, then fold them again because I don’t know what to do with them.

Dad left in a hurry over an hour ago, and shortly after that, I got a text from Nico telling me to go downstairs and meet him at a certain time. I’m early, but I just couldn’t sit upstairs in