Nicolai’s lips pressed in a grin, but he stroked the laugh lines around his mouth and bent to look at the sidewalk, hiding it. “Yes, and as such, it means we should proceed inside the mall and out of the public area.”
Clementine swung her hair behind her shoulders and strode toward the mall doors.
The crowd parted for her like Moses parting the Red Sea.
Dusha chased after her, and after a glance from Ueli, the white bodyguard-guy with auburn hair and freckles followed.
I waffled, shifting to-and-fro again, trying to figure out if I should try to keep up with her or stay there.
Nicolai solved the problem by lifting my hand and curling my fingers under the crook of his elbow as he moved toward the mall, and his cadre tightened their formation around us.
The fine fabric of Nico’s suit jacket was soft under my fingers and warmer than usual, like maybe he had the slightest fever. He was probably just hot from sitting in the black SUV, which concentrated the heat of the desert sun, no matter how hard the air conditioning blew cold, dry air at us.
Between the Vegas tourists streaming toward the casino entrance on the left, I saw Clementine whip open a glass mall door and walk straight in.
Her white-guy bodyguard slipped through the next door beside hers.
Dusha caught her door as it swung and held it open above her head. After a quick glance back at us, he scowled and followed her inside.
I kind of wanted to warn him about the blasé way Clementine had talked about bodyguards and horse grooms, like they were NPCs or blow-up dude-dolls.
But Dusha was, very certainly, an adult man who could pick or reject offers as he chose. I didn’t need to play relationship fairy for him. No one would want that.
Clementine probably wouldn’t see him as human enough to hit on him, anyway.
After Dusha’s laser beam pew-pew glare at Clementine’s retreating back, he’d probably reject her with an eyeroll and tell her to find someone interested, anyway.
As we neared the entrance, the new guy strode ahead and opened one of the mall's doors.
Two of our guys fanned out and went in through flanking doors.
Ueli stepped in front of us, almost tripping me but I held onto Nico’s arm, and led our party inside.
Auburn New Guy and two other security guys entered behind Nico and me, and our whole posse rotated into a square around us again.
The sparse other shoppers recoiled at our moving phalanx. People sipping lattes in the garden-enclosed coffee shop peeped over the flowers at us.
I had to learn how to integrate myself into these danged maneuvers. Their one-two-three was obviously choreographed: New Guy open, Ueli and others head inside and scan, then us, then rear guard.
I was stumbling and messing things up at every juncture.
In the half-hidden corridor we’d walked down yesterday, Dusha held the elevator for us with one hand pressing the doors open as he continued to watch the environment.
The other guy stood outside the open doors, scanning the crowd for any reason to draw a weapon, it looked like. He stepped aside as we neared.
Ueli and the rear guard sardined into the elevator after us, and we ascended to the higher floors again.
Nicolai had not been kidding when he’d said living his life would be different than what I was used to.
As the doors opened, the bodyguards streamed out and lined up like an honor guard, facing outward, and Nico led me between them.
Clementine trotted ahead of us. “We’re going to get the Birkinsfirst.”
“The Hermes store is on the second floor with the other purse shops,” Dusha told her, his voice flat.
“I don’t shop at amall storewith tourists gawking at the price tags onscarves.We will meet my rep at heroffice.”
It sounded like Clementine had put Dusha in his place, but I didn’t know what that place was or how long he’d been out of it.
