Page 16 of The Blonde Identity

His grin was warm and soft, but when she spoke, her voice trembled. “Just... don’t die on me, okay? Fake or otherwise.”

“Hey.” He reached out—hand lingering too long in the air—like he might want to hug her but he didn’t know how, so he rubbed the back of his neck instead. “I’m sorry. I won’t do any kind of dying. I promise.”

And, like it or not, she believed him.

Chapter Eleven

Him

Paris was having a snow day, or so it seemed. Ladies in cashmere sat beneath portable heaters at sidewalk cafés. Kids filled the streets, dragging sleds and shouting taunts.

The world was bright, and the sky was clear, and it would have been so easy to believe in clean slates and second chances. Sawyer felt the woman beside him turning, taking it all in like she was one of those little kids, racing toward the park, savoring the feel of snowflakes on her lashes.

So he had no choice but to pull her close, hand on the back of her head, looking to the world like he wanted her within kissing distance at all times.

“Oh! Are we going to makeout so no one gets suspicious?” she asked, and Sawyer almost fell on his ass.

“What?” he asked.

“You know?” she said with exaggerated patience. “When two people are about to get caught, so they kiss suddenly and—”

“No!” he said a little too sharply. “We’re not doing that.”

“Oh. Well. We could. If we need to. For our cover. I’m here for whatever we need to do, cover-wise.”

She was so matter-of-fact, gazing up at the stretch of skin between his jaw and his throat like she didn’t know that’s exactly where you’d need to cut to make him bleed. So he weaved his fingers through her hair and pulled her closer.

The shell of her ear was cold against his lips as he whispered, “Fun fact: facial recognition software only works if it can see your face.”

“Oh. Right.” She gave a little shiver and tucked her chin low as if bracing against the chilly wind.

And walked right into a streetlight.

“Ow.”

“Here.” He sighed and slipped an arm around her shoulders, suddenly missing the cover of darkness. But at least now they had the cover of people. People on their way to work. Kids playing hooky from school. Tourists stumbling along, not knowing if being in Paris during a blizzard made their luck incredibly good or exceptionally awful.

“Well, now that we have the official bag of going—” she started.

“That’s not what it’s called.”

“—whereare we going? Exactly? I mean, what’s Plan C? Or Plan B-point-one? Because...”

She was looking up at him with her too-big eyes again, so he glowered down and pushed her head toward his shoulder.

“We keep ourheads downand we walk. We don’t make contact with anyone we know and we don’t go anyplace we’ve ever been before. Predictability is death.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” she muttered. “Because I don’t know a soul.”

He felt the weight of her head against his shoulder, the soft brush of her hair blowing across his cheek—and Sawyer, who had been alone in the world for more than a decade, wondered what it would feel like to wake up with no friends and no enemies, no ghosts and no regrets. He wondered if he’d miss them.

“That’s not true.” He couldn’t help glancing down at her. “You know me.”

He was just getting ready to chastise her for looking up at him again. And smiling at him. Again. It was sloppy, sloppy tradecraft and he needed to tell her to stop it, but that was when he saw the blue jackets and swirling lights. A police car was inching down the street and two cops were on the sidewalk, pushing through the crowd. Looking for something. Someone.

And, suddenly, Sawyer wanted to turn. Run.

Up ahead, the officers were examining every face, scanning every tourist. He felt the Glock at the small of his back as he scanned the crowd. He could get her out of there, but not without a whole lot of collateral damage.

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