Page 31 of A Royally Fake French Menage
I closed my eyes, willing blood to flow back to my brain as the answer hit me. “You air tagged my fucking luggage.”
Beau laughed. “I air tagged your family heirloom,” he corrected me. I suspected you’d need it, or that it would lead me to an answer I needed. In any case I was both right and wrong. And here we are.” He nodded jovially and reached out to Genie. “Darling. I haven’t seen you for an age.”
She weathered the kiss he placed on her cheek with pinked skin and closed eyes.
When those hazel eyes fluttered open, her gaze pierced my soul. “We used to date,” she whispered, staring at the floor.
“I get it,” I stage whispered back at her from behind my hand. “I used to have a crush on him until I realized that all the pretty faces in the world didn’t matter if there was nothing there in either the heartorthe brain department.”
Beau growled and Genie giggled.
I didn’t give a fuck about his reaction, but I did damn well care about hers. Holding out my arms I moved sideways, away from him. If he was here to kill me about the damn armor, thenhe could get it over with. I was too tired to fight today. But he wouldn’t do it without me being between him and her.
I knew Beau Bennett had plenty of dark tendencies. He simply didn’t need to display them in my house.
“I’d disagree—” Beau started, but his spine stiffened. Suddenly I wasn’t the only one in the room grinding their teeth.
“I was wondering when you’d get back. How did you go to the village?” I called over Beau’s shoulder.
“Fabulously. We have a three quarter contingent of staff on a promissory note bearing your father’s dual solicitor's name—is that what it’s called here?” Jacques leaned around Beau to catch my eye, his brow furrowed as he pressed the gun tighter to Beau’s flesh.
I shrugged. “It’s close enough for this conversation. What did you hear?”
“Enough. Is it just you?” Jacques addressed Beau. “Be clear, please.” His accent dropped and I wondered what other upskilling my lover had done in recent years.
Genie stumbled back into my arms. “What’s happening?”
I placed two fingers over her lips. Explanations could come in a moment.
“Just. Me,” Beau seethed.
I nodded to Jacques. “Truth. He’s angry because he didn’t know.”
Jacques smiled and nudged Beau further into the room. “As it should be.”
Genie turned in my arms. “What didn’t he know?”
I smiled down at her. “Jacques's first duty is as my bodyguard. He has been since I turned seventeen, though his duties as my valet began when I was eighteen. The year we became lovers.” Friendship blossomed. Jacques, then nineteen and a few scant years older than me, took the time to teach me the skills to defend myself as his first ever client.
But that was where his duties stopped, geographically speaking. He never travelled with me to keep that cover in place. Because France was where the money lay. Here in England, there was less threat, or so my father assumed. It looked as though I had brought my own problems with me from the States.
My reminiscence could wait, however.
I stared at Beau, gathering Genie in my arms and motioned for Jacques to step back after our insurgent handed over his weapon and two blades that were found on him. “Why are you here? You didn’t track me across the globe for my silver collection.”
Beau snorted. “I’m here for her.”
Both Jacques and I stiffened.
“Never going to happen,” he murmured, raising the gun a second time.
Beau smiled faintly. “Interesting. I thought you only batted for Team Barclay.”
I swore Jacques actually growled.
“However,” Beau continued, as though he was never interrupted at all, “I’m here for one person, and it’s neither of you boys.”
My arms tightened around Genie. “What?”
