part0007

She had changed three times before settling on a gray and white belted sheath dress. She was torn between wearing black, which she thought was more befitting of the sure-to-be somber mood, or a lighter color. She also didn’t want to appear intellectually lightweight in something more feminine and pastel, so she chose gray and white. She towered over the doorman and all the engineers in the studio. That alone made her feel kick-ass ready at least. Indeed, in her 3-inch pointy-toed, patent leather pumps she stood nearly eye to eye with the 6-foot-and-small-change Thierry Gasquet.

Thierry waved casually to a nattily dressed man in black. He too was handsome and tall— most unusual for a French man. He was the color of caramel with light brown eyes. Havilah was certain that the Frenchman was another SPHP agent, which meant that some VIP, of whom she had not been apprised, was now on Les Raleurs’s roster with her. She knew about the award-winning French journalist Elle Lefèvre, as well as Jacques Augustin, a biographer of Napoleon Bonaparte. She looked around the studio trying to discern who the mystery guest could be. Her multitasking mind flitted over to the agent. What is it with SPHP? she wondered. Did they only employ tall , dreamy French men at the agency ?

“How do you know him?” Havilah asked Thierry. She angled her head in the direction of the incognito agent.

“He’s a colleague.” Thierry placed his hand on her back as he guided her towards an outreached hand.

“I knew it. So, who is the mystery guest that wasn’t on my list?” She shook a piece of paper with the other guests’ names she’d been sent via email.

“You’ll be fine as long as you remember what I told you.”

“You knew about Lemieux’s murder when you called this morning. You knew about this mystery guest too, but you can’t tell me. That’s why you wanted to come over and escort me here. I don’t need SPHP protection anymore, Thierry. This isn’t Cassis.”

She wanted to stamp her foot or ball a fist or something to emphasize the point, but there were too many people milling about and she would have looked idiotic and childish with Thierry smiling evenly at her. Moreover, she knew she wasn’t being exactly fair. They were both trying to feel out the boundaries of their new relationship and here she was trying to literally pump him for state secrets while simultaneously accusing him of acting like she was still his charge. She instantly buttoned up the theatrics and tried to touch his hand as a way of apologizing.

“I’m not here as an agent. I’m here as your…”

As he whispered in her ear, he had hesitated— something he rarely did— to find a word to describe their relationship now. He was always so exacting in his word choice, so his hesitation struck her as well.

To her everlasting annoyance, the ear whispering had the same arousing effect it had had when she first met him in Cassis. Sparks. Tingles. Heart palpitations. Havilah wondered if she would spontaneously combust one day from all the effort she put into repressing her libidinous self.

She jerked her head upwards, and before she could respond, she was whisked off to makeup.

He had stumbled badly in trying to find the word to describe their evolving relationship. He’d seen her befuddled look when he said the word. Thierry was distracted from this train of thought when Étienne Belami waved him over. He had known Étienne since they’d trained for SPHP. Like Thierry, he had a long and storied history with France and the Americas. It was what had made them such good friends. That word again , Thierry thought exasperated, as he ran his fingers through his hair.

Whereas the Gasquets were wealthy French-Moroccans in business and law, the Belami family money, which had been laundered many times over since, derived originally from the sugar cane plantations on the French Caribbean island of Martinique. Both had also dropped the aristocratic “de” from their last names when they joined SPHP. Martinique was one of the old colonies. Étienne’s third great maternal grandmother, Mathilde, was purchased by his third great grandfather, Georges de Bellamy. She became an affranchie , a freed Caribbean woman. He took her and their four children to Annecy, France in the second half of the nineteenth century, where generations of the family had lived ever since except for the occasional returns to their native land of Martinique to find proper Creole spouses. In the interim, the family attempted to distance themselves from their slave trafficking past by changing their last name to Belami; though the French men in Étienne’s family, like their forebear Georges de Bellamy, preferred mixed-race Creole Martinican women as brides— which explained Étienne’s throwback brown complexion. Étienne was an ancien Roséen , that is, an alum of the exclusive Swiss boarding school Institut Le Rosey, where he’d learned British English despite its sizeable American population before he completed his studies at the French university, École Normale Supérieure. Thierry, on the other hand, had completed most of his studies at prestigious schools in Paris and eventually traveled abroad to the United States to learn English. Both families were decidedly disappointed with the heirs’ apparent pursuit of careers in government service.

“Salut, mon frère! Tu ne travailles pas aujourd’hui, non ?” Thierry and Étienne embraced heartily like brothers, giving each other a kiss on each cheek.

“No, I’m not working today. I’m here with a belle amie .”

He and Étienne laughed at Thierry’s play on the latter’s last name— bel ami , which meant beautiful friend. Thierry was relieved finally to have happened upon one way of conveying the connection he felt to Havilah that wouldn’t send her scurrying for cover. She tried every which way to keep him and her feelings at a remove.

“Oui , la belle Américaine . She is the talk and toast of Paris these days.”

“That she is. When were you reassigned?” Thierry asked quietly.

“This morning, as it happens. Me and my partner. The old man was cantankerous. He had given us the slip on too many occasions to run to the sex clubs. He had one in particular he enjoyed frequenting in Les Halles on Saturdays. But sometimes, we just could not locate him. He was clever in that way. And it was just too risky. You can’t force a man like him to accept protection. Sarko was going to cut him loose. It’s the optics.”