“And I’m here for you. I’ll call you back after I talk to Stephen.”

We hang up and I sit, my foot tapping nervously. Chris wouldn’t have to call the attorney if he truly believed this was just a passport lag. And what does that even mean? Why is my passport lagged?

“There you are!” Chantal exclaims, and I turn to ind her and Rey headed toward me. I’d forgotten about them completely, and I cringe at the idea of them discovering me being accused of murder. What will they think of me? Or worse, of Chris?

I push to my feet and step around the chair to meet them, trying to hide the trembling of my hands by running them over my hips.

“What’s going on?” Rey asks, and he doesn’t look pleased.

“And why didn’t you tell me you were coming in here?”

“They need to ask me some questions. I’ll be out as soon as I’m done.”

“Questions?” Rey looks baled. “About the pickpocket?”

I hesitate and almost laugh. Could it be as simple as that?

Could I be overreacting? Oh, please let it be about the pickpocket. “Maybe.”

“Maybe it’s about Ella,” Chantal suggests, and she glances at Rey.

The door behind the desk opens, and Rey’s gaze goes past me. I turn to ind three men entering and, before I can stop her, Chantal charges toward them.

Rey steps to my side and whispers, “What’s really going on, Sara?”

“Chris is on his way here now. Please, if you want to help, get Chantal out of here.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t leave you.”

“Sara,” Chantal says, and I turn to ind her standing beside me, looking exceedingly pale.

“What is it?”

She whispers, “Is there some kind of investigation in the States?”

“I . . .” I do not want Chantal to know about this. “What did they say?”

“I didn’t understand, really. I asked about Ella, and they started questioning me about some investigation in the States.”

My hand goes to my throat. “Were they . . . talking about Ella?”

“I . . .” She looks lustered. “I don’t know.”

I grab her arm, my ingers digging into her delicate skin, and the room spins around me, fading in and out. What if Ella had returned to San Francisco after we checked her passport and Ava had killed her to spite me? It seems impossible, but then so does Ava really killing Rebecca.

“Sara.” Chantal’s voice rattles along my raw nerve endings, her very existence a reminder of Ella’s sweet, trusting nature, and neither of them would stand a chance against Ava.

My gaze darts to Chantal and I blurt, “I need to know if the investigation involves Ella. I need to know if they mean Ella.

Ask them now.”

Fifteen

Is Ella dead?

I hug myself, trying to control the shaking my adrenaline rush has created, holding my breath as I listen to the French exchanges erupting around me. For an eternal moment, I listen to the murmurs, understanding nothing but a random reference to “Ella”, and still I don’t get an answer to my question. IsElla dead? Is she dead? No one is talking to me. No one is talking in English. I can’t take it. My heart is going to explode in my chest.

“Is Ella dead?” I all but shout. The room is instantly silent, all eyes on me, and I think maybe I actually didshout, but I don’t care. “Is she dead?” This time I whisper. This time I have their attention.

The irst man I’d spoken to leans across his desk, ists pressed on the steel surface, to bring himself eye level to me.

“We don’t know who Ella is, but we intend to ind out.”

The accusation in his voice is pure acid, but I process only what is important. They have no clue who Ella is or where she is. Ella isn’t dead. The men in this department don’t know who she is.

“We have questions for you, Mademoiselle McMillan,” the man adds, and I swear the other three men are hovering behind him worse than Rey does with me.

Before I can stop myself, I reply, “And I have questions about the missing-persons report on Ella.” It’s been weeks since Blake contacted the embassy about her. Weeks!

He gives me a piercing look before glowering at Rey and Chantal, speaking to them in French. I have the overwhelming urge to yell again. I’m really getting damn tired of people speaking French when they know I don’t understand it.

Rey glares at whatever the man has said, responding in a rough, fast rampage of French. I might not know the language but I recognize “pissed of ” when I hear it.

Chantal’s hand comes down on my shoulder; a gentle, comforting touch. “They say we have to wait outside, Sara. I don’t want to leave you.”

These men have told her they want to question me regarding an investigation I’m attached to in some way, and she doesn’t want to leave my side. I can only hope that means they didn’t use the word “murder.” Still, she should be running. I’d be running. But she, like Ella, is too naïve to know this. She, like Ella, could too easily end up vulnerable and in trouble.

Protectiveness rises in me and I rest my hand on her shoulder, promising myself I will soon do the same with Ella. “I’m okay. You go with Rey and get out of here. Thank you for all you’ve done today.”

“We’ll be outside the door,” Rey states, and I ind him in a glare with the man behind the desk. “Right outside the door if she needs us.” His attention shifts back to me, his tone softening for my ears only. “I can’t risk being escorted out of the building by refusing to leave or I would, but don’t talk to them until Chris gets here.”

“I won’t,” I assure him, and my phone rings. “That’s probably Chris now.”

“Mademoiselle—” the man begins, and Rey immediately cuts him of with some sharply spoken statement in French, and, intended or not, he’s created a window for me to take my call. I climb through.

I dart toward the opposite side of the room and perch in an empty chair. “Chris,” I answer and glance up to watch Rey and Chantal being escorted from the room.

“Stephen says not to talk to anyone.”

“Does he know what’s going on?”

“He doesn’t have any answers yet, but his answer would be the same. Tell them you aren’t at liberty to talk without counsel, or simply buy time and I’ll tell them.”

“Mademoiselle McMillan,” the man behind the desk says, a sharp bite to his words.

I hold up a inger. “One more minute.”

He grinds his teeth. “One only.”

“I heard that,” Chris says. “He’s just trying to intimidate you. Pretend he’s Mark trying to get under your skin. Lift that little chin of yours and stand tall.”

Mark couldn’t put me behind bars. I change the subject before I run out of time. “Please tell Rey to take Chantal home.”

“Not until I get there.”

“Please. I don’t want them to hear the accusations against me. How can I make a life here with you if everyone you know thinks I’m a . . .”—I can’t say murderer—“criminal?”

“No one is going to know about this.”

“They already told Chantal there’s an investigation in the States. Please. Get them to leave.”

“I have to know if they take you somewhere, Sara. And I’m almost there. I’m hanging up to focus getting to you.

Don’t speak to them about anything.” He hangs up before I can argue.

I squeeze my eyes shut and draw in a thick, hard-earned breath, before sliding my phone into my purse and turning toward the men on the other side of the room. Crossing the distance between us, I pause in front of his desk. “Monsieur . . . ?”

“Bernard,” he supplies.

“Monsieur Bernard,” I repeat. “Can you direct me to the toilette?”

He studies me a moment. “Can’t it wait?”

His tone verges on rudeness and I reply with sticky-sweet innocence. “I’m feeling quite queasy. Something I ate, I believe.

Tartare. I thought to spare your desk a mess.”

He openly scowls and speaks to a man over his shoulder, then to me again. “Monsieur Dupont will escort you.”

I’m such a criminal they need to escort me? The man, bald and in his midifties, with a hard, round face, approaches me.

Chris’s words from last night play in my head. We attack the problems. They don’t attack us. And baby, we do it together. I inhale deeply. We do it together. And it hits me then that “together”

doesn’t mean handing over my life to Chris. It means sharing it. Unlike others in my life before him, Chris is trying to make me stronger. Hiding in the bathroom until he arrives is not stronger.

Straightening, my chin lifts, and while the uneasy sensation in my belly remains, I am stronger. I walk to the chair and sit down. Surprise lashes on his face. “You’re ready to answer questions?”

“No. I’m not ready at all. I’m waiting on a call from my attorney.” I lean forward, resting my hand on the desk, my voice as steady now as his. “And, Monsieur Bernard, if you slander my name with anyone, especially my friends outside, you will know my name far better than you wish you did.”

The surprise he’d shown seconds before morphs into a stunned expression. It matches what I’m feeling. Where did that come from? His brow furrows. “You are quite deiant for a woman accused of murder.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Accused by the very woman who tried to kill me two nights ago—so, yes, you bet I’m deiant.”

And why haven’t I been before now? I’m innocent. I’m a victim. I’m furious that I’m being questioned.

“Then why did you lee the country?”

“I did not lee the country,” I state calmly.

“She came with me.”

I twist around to ind Chris standing in the doorway, his hair a damp mess, droplets of water clinging to the black Harley jacket he wears with the same ease he does his power. The entire room seems to suck in a breath at the same moment, waiting for what will come next. Waiting for him.

His attention ixes on me, and it’s as if no one else were in the room. He sees me. He’s dismissed them.

“I told you I was close, baby,” he drawls, seemingly unaf-fected by the situation. He saunters into the room, and while he’s all casual coolness and sexy swagger, there is a lethal, primal quality just beneath his surface. I might be trying to take control myself, and I want to, but it’s a beautiful thing watching Chris be Chris.

He stops beside my chair and holds out a hand. His eyes are gentle, yet somehow still glinting with hard steel and pure dominance. Holding his gaze, I slip my purse onto my shoulder and press my palm into his. A warm, tingling sensation dances up my arm and I see Chris’s eyes dilate, awareness seeping into his unwavering stare. He feels it, too—this crazy, impossible attraction between us that’s contained by nothing, not even the jerks watching us. I love that about us. I love us.

His ingers close around mine and he pulls me to my feet.

“We’re leaving. We have museums to visit.”

Bernard speaks in rapid, agitated French.

Chris licks him a bored look and says something in reply.

Maybe two sentences. I’m dying to know what; I really have to step up my game.

I glance at Bernard,whose peeved expression is pretty darn telling—as is the defensive way he crosses his arms in front of his chest. Whatever Chris has said, Bernard oicially has his panties in a wad, and I almost laugh.

Obviously entertained by the man’s reaction, Chris’s lips twitch and he motions me to the door. We’re halfway to the exit when Bernard calls out to us. Chris stops but doesn’t turn, as if the man is unworthy of his attention. He answers the man, sounding rather amused, as if whatever power Bernard believes he has is a joke. Then we start walking again and we don’t stop.

We travel briskly through the waiting room, where people cluster like ants. Halfway to the exit the hair on the nape of my neck prickles, as it had when I was shopping yesterday.

Fighting the urge to look behind us, I try to erase the sensation with a rub of my hand. It has to be Bernard watching our departure, and I cast Chris an anxious glance. “Can we just walk out like that?”

“We just did.”

Right. We just did. The prickling sensation deepens and I rub harder; I can’t get out of here soon enough. “What about Rey and Chantal?” I ask when we inally step into the main corridor.

“I had Rey take Chantal home.”

“They don’t know about—”

“No. You can relax. I questioned Rey on the phone before I got here.”

Relief washes over me. “Have you talked to Stephen?”

“Long enough for him to tell me to do what I’d planned on doing anyway, and get you the hell out of there.”

Having my freedom blessed by our attorney is cold comfort, considering I’m still without a passport and being questioned about a murder I didn’t commit. “You know,” I say through my teeth, “these accusations are really starting to piss me of.”

Chris looks down at me, approval glowing in his eyes.

“About time you got mad.”

Yes, I think as we approach the exit. About time. I guess I have Bernard to thank for my coming around. It’s time I remind everyone I am a victim, but not the kind I’ve acted like. Ava tried to kill me. They should be helping me, not attacking me with her.

We join a half-dozen people near the exit, all staring at the sheets of rain coming down outside. I cut Chris a hopeful look.