Page 13 of Royally Romanov
Finley Abbot
Conservateur adjoint
Louvre
And at the bottom of the card, a phone number.
Bonnenuit.
A very good night indeed.
FINLEY INDULGED SCOTT ANDwaited while he did a thorough sweep of the cramped bookshop. Once he seemed satisfied that Maxim had indeed vacated the premises and the only person remaining in the store was the lone Tumbleweed who’d turned up for the night, he flipped off the lights and locked the door.
Finley didn’t have to ask if he was walking her home. He fell in step beside her, and she accepted the situation as a given. She was actually somewhat glad. The evening had been strange, to say the least.
Silently, they walked deeper into the Latin Quarter where Finley’s third-floor walk-up was situated. When her building came into view, Scott finally gave voice to the words she’d known were coming.
“Please tell me you didn’t give that guy your number.”
Finley shrugged. “I didn’t.”
Technically, she’d done no such thing. He might be insanely attractive, but she knew better than to give a complete and total stranger her cell number. Especially a complete and total stranger who was possibly some kind of wacko conspiracy theorist. “I gave him my business card.”
Scott gaped at her. “You gave him your card? The one that has all of your contact information at the Louvre?”
“The last time I checked, the Louvre was my only place of employment. So yes, that business card.” She appreciated Scott’s concern, she really did, but wasn’t he going a little overboard?
Of course he was, and it was because he was one of the only people in Paris who knew what had happened to her back home. She trusted Scott. He’d earned that trust by helping her adjust to life in a foreign country and by teaching her how to act like a native Parisian so she wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb.
Maxim, on the other hand, was a total stranger. She had no reason to trust him.
But if he knew something about the Romanovs—some secret that history hadn’t yet uncovered—she was willing to give him a chance.
She had to.
“It’s not that big of a deal when you think about it.” That’s what she’d told herself anyway, when she’d slipped the card into Maxim’s hand. He had nice hands. Large. Warm. Smooth. The hands of an artist. Or a writer, maybe. Not the hands of a fighter—the deep purple bruise on his temple notwithstanding. “He has my book. My bio is right there on the inside flap, and it says I work at the Louvre. Newsflash: the Louvre is pretty recognizable. Anyone can find it.”
Scott sighed. Mightily. “You have a point. Still, I don’t like it. I have a bad feeling about that guy.”
“Why?”Because he believed himself to be an actual stalker or because he can’t remember his own name?
“For starters, he was lurking around at closing time hoping to talk to you.”
Finley wouldn’t exactly call it lurking. More like waiting... in a ridiculously gorgeous manner. “He’s a lurker? That’s his big crime?”
They paused at the window of Aux Merveilleux patisserie to watch the late night bakers roll delicate cakes in shaved chocolate. Finley’s stomach growled.
In the reflection of the window, Scott’s gaze met hers. “He also asked you out for coffee. Iheardhim, Finley.”
“Men do ask me out occasionally. I realize that might be a shocking revelation, but it does happen.” She just never said yes.
For starters, she had too much on her plate already. Between trying to make a name for herself at the Louvre and writing her book, she barely had time to walk her dog, much less date.
Also, she wasn’t ready. Not yet.
She might never be ready.
She knew it was absurd. The man who’d mugged her on her college campus back home had been a stranger. A person she’d never seen before. But for months afterward, she couldn’t bear it when her boyfriend touched her. She’d just wanted to be left alone. Eventually, he’d gotten frustrated enough to do just that.
