“The meetingdidgo well.”
I directed her toward the Tube station, and she fell into step with me. “I need to scout the location first.”
“Scout it? It’s the Tower of freaking London. There’s security everywhere. Thecrown jewelsare there.”
“Which is exactly why I need to map the layout. Crowds, choke points, exits.”
“Garrett.” She drew my name out as though she were a toddler begging for a toy.
So help me, if she started pouting, I was going to call Tristan and tell him to get his ass over here and handle this. “This is how protection works, Grace. I visit the site before I take you. Then we go.”
She stopped walking. “Do you do this with all your clients?”
“Yes.” I turned to face her stubborn self. “Every single one of them.”
She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, arms crossed. “So you’re going to go see London while I sit in the hotel room?”
“For an hour. Maybe two.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the job.”
Her eyes flashed. “Fine. Scout your location. I’ll just stay locked in my tower.”
She stormed past me, and I let her go. I stayed three steps behind her, where she was in my line of sight and safe.
Chapter 13
Grace
Garrett had been gonefor almost an hour, and I was still standing at the window waiting for him.
Tower Bridge rose in the distance, its towers beautiful against a sky growing grayer with every minute. The Thames crawled below it, boats cutting white trails through the water. Somewhere out there, Garrett was “scouting” the Tower of London as if we were about to infiltrate a military compound instead of visiting a tourist attraction.
‘Shouldn’t be more than two hours,’he’d said.
Glancing at the clock on the little desk in the corner, I let out a sigh. He’d been gone for fifty-three minutes. The whole city stretched out in front of me. It wasright there. I could practically touch it all.
I turned away and paced the length of the suite. Past the purple sofa where Garrett had slept last night. Past the partial wall separating the sitting area from the bed. When I reached the bathroom door, I turned around. The suite was gorgeous. The view was spectacular. And I was trapped in it like a bird in a gilded cage.
This is ridiculous.
I grabbed my phone, opened my book, and flopped onto the bed. But all I managed was to read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word. I set it down. Picked up the room service menu, put it back. Walked to the window. Walked away.
Garrett was the one seeing what I wanted to see.
He’s just being careful, Grace.Two men came to your café. Someone was in your apartment. This is real.
But the part of my brain that sounded suspiciously like Didi when I started doubting myself about anything pointed out that it was broad daylight. That I’d be in public the entire time. That those men had shown up inMichigan, which was thousands of miles and an ocean from where I stood right now.
If she were here, she would say that life was too short tonotsee London.
I pulled up a map on my phone, searching for a target. For half a second, I considered the Tower of London. I could find Garrett and be like one of those feisty heroines from my books and tell him I was a grown woman who didn’t need his rules. But the look on his face when I’d pushed past him at the Tube station flashed through my mind. He’d be furious. He’d probably carry me back to the hotel over his shoulder like some kind of medieval knight.
Actually, being carried over his shoulder might not be the worst?—
Stop it, Grace.
