To want a man who may be on the wrong side of history.
Alice is back to that complication.
She needs to locate his vault, get into it, and find nothing incriminating inside.
She licks her dessert spoon.
“Alice,” Hans says, patting his napkin to his lips. “Stay the night.”
She snickers. “Just as forward as ever.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “Forward would have been me asking to visit your room the first night. Somehow I found the fortitude to kiss only your wrist. I’m afraid all fortitude is lost, especially with what you’re doing to that utensil.”
Alice’s cheeks heat while the spoon stills in her mouth.
“Alice . . . ,” Hans says, in a tone that’s almost painful-sounding. “Stay the night.”
* * *
“Darling?” Hans asks, confusion in his voice.
Alice lay in his arms. Up until a few moments ago, she’d been quiet. Being in bed together was like muscle memory, picking up where they’d left off. Everything, all of Hans, feels like a resuming of before.
Hans strokes her hair. “Darling?” he says again.
Alice is crying. Sobbing, actually, the cadence of her cries quick and strong enough to shake her body.
Hans holds on tight, not letting go until she’s more or less blubbering. She wipes a hand under her nose, then he lifts her chin, forcing their eyes to meet. “Have I hurt you?”
“Of course not.”
“I noticed the bruises and wasn’t sure if I was too—”
“Occupational hazard. One of your Swiss girls sure knows how to smash a ball.”
“Then what is it? Did I disappoint you?” he asks, as if the weight of the world sat directly upon him. “What have I done wrong?”
“Nothing,” she says. “And you should know better than to ask if you’ve disappointed me. You can’t.”
But could he, if he’s helping the Nazis squirrel away wealth?
“Then why are you crying?”
She shudders a breath. “I’m happy. You said you want to make me happy, and I am. I feel alive for the first time in months. But I’m also sad.”
“We’ll work on the sad part,” he says, kissing her softly on the top of her head. “This is a second chance.”
Like another serve after a fault, it’s a second chance at love, yes. But it’s also Alice’s second chance in this war. It’s that second second that is sobering. How easily she forgets why she’s here.
The soft kiss on the top of her head comes again. “I’ve an idea. I’ll warn you it’s another forward one.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Let’s move you out of your hotel and into my house.”
Alice’s eyes widen, but she tries to cover her surprise with a joke. “Your house? You say that so casually, as if this isn’t a castle.”
“Fine, my castle. Move into my castle. Your matches will last for—what—four weeks in total? Stay in comfort. Better yet, stay longer than a month. Stay as long as you want.”
* * *
It’s too much. Too much guilt. Too much confliction. Too much hope. Too much regret. Too much sadness.
So Alice tells Hans she needs time to think about it and avoids it all.
She’s on the third day of ignoring the messages the bellhop delivers to her from Hans on her way into the hotel after her tennis matches.
Those three days, tennis has been her only focus. It’s nothing new. She’s good at it. Focusing on tennis is a hell of a lot less confusing. In fact, it’s straightforward. She has a job to do playing against the young Swiss athletes at the Parc des Eaux-Vives.
In her hotel room, Alice drops her head into her hands. She also has a job to do for the intelligence office—her actual reason for being in Geneva. And, as if taunting her, Linden’s words hammer inside her head.
“We believe that you, and you alone, Miss Marble, are the only person who can make contact with him and complete this assignment for us.”
It’s times like this she wishes she didn’t have such a good memory. But she does.
So Alice reads the latest message from Hans instead of slipping it into the desk drawer like the others.
I can’t do this again.
Alice picks up the phone, her grip tight, rattled at the thought of losing Hans a second time. But maybe him dejecting her and Alice going back to the States is the best outcome—for them both.
“I’m sorry,” she says instinctively upon hearing his voice.
“I need more from you than that, Alice.”
Not “darling,” but her name.
She swallows roughly.
“I needed time to think and to get my head on straight. It’s all happening so fast—”
“The last few days of silence haven’t felt fast.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Ignoring someone you love isn’t fair. It’s not a solution.”
“That you love?”
“Yes. I loved Joe, but that doesn’t mean I ever stopped loving you, Hans.”
“I must say I am relieved to hear it. That head of yours, were you able to get it on straight after all?”
“Yes,” she says, instilling confidence into that single word that she doesn’t feel. In fact, it’s complete fiction.
By not saying yes to Hans and accepting his invitation to his home, she feels like a traitor to her country.
By saying yes to Hans and sharing his bed, she feels like a traitor to her late husband.
By saying yes to Hans and using it as an opportunity to scour his home, she feels like a traitor to Hans.
Her head is anything but on straight.
Alice sighs, her gaze flicking to the makeup bag that holds her gun, camera, and tools and says, “Ask me again.”
“Alice, will you move from the hotel and into my oversized home?”
“Yes, I’ll pack my bags and be ready within the hour.”