So I nodded.
At least she didn’t argue about staying in the suite. She headed straight to Arthur’s room, and the television came on a moment later. Background noise with a laugh track, likely so her friends and family wouldn’t worry.
“If we’d had Morganna’s analysis before we left the States,” said Arthur, “we would have been in much better shape.”
Merlin was watching the door Grace had gone through. “So hire her.”
“I’m trying. She’s being weird about it.”
I sat next to Radek, who was reviewing a satellite image on one of the laptops.
Merlin leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Your girl pulled the front-running comparison fast.”
No one spoke. He meant me.Mygirl. “She’s my client. And she’s a woman, not a girl.”
Merlin didn’t react, just kept talking. “Morganna’s background check had her in international finance up until two and a half years ago.”
“That tracks. Why’d she leave?” Arthur asked.
“Morganna didn’t find a reason, but our guess was it had to do with her family.” Merlin shrugged. “That’s usually the kind of thing that takes someone from a promising career to opening a little coffee shop in a small town.”
It wasn’t just a little coffee shop, though. The older man and his crossword, the people who smiled when they came through her door, the way she delivered my coffee with a flourish. She hadn’t left anything behind. She’d found the thing that mattered.
“It makes her happy,” I said, as though it explained everything.
Arthur and Merlinbothcocked their eyebrows at me. The questions in their eyes had nothing to do with Grace’s resume, but everything to do with the weight settling in my chest. The one that got heavier when I imagined Grace in a cold boardroom or sitting alone in a room staring at a spreadsheet.
I pulled the laptop toward me. “We should get back to planning.”
Chapter 28
Galahad
“Then there was the time,”Arthur said, pointing at Merlin, “he drove our convoy into a flock of sheep and?—”
“It wasn’t a flock,” Merlin said. “It was three sheep.”
Arthur laughed, that full-throated kind of laugh that made people love him. “Three sheep that materialized out of nowhere on a mountain road.”
“They were behind a rock.”
“And you didn’t see them because you were?—”
“Checking the map.” Merlin’s eyes rose heavenward. Arthur told this story every time the two of them got into the same room. “The map was wrong, by the way. We would have driven off a cliff if I hadn’t caught it.”
“Would we, though?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been saying that for eight years.” Arthur turned to Grace. “There was no cliff, and he slammed the vehicle into that rock to avoid the hill and the sheep.”
“There was a steep embankment.”
“Ahill, Merlin. It was a hill. And youstilldrove us into that rock.”
Grace had been laughing at the two of them for so long that tears streaked her cheeks.
The hotel restaurant was packed. White tablecloths, candles in glass holders, and the low murmur of other diners enjoying their meals. The staff had treated us like royalty from the moment Arthur had said we were with Pendragon Security. His father’s money and reputation carried weight in many places. Radek and Aleš had positioned themselves near the entrance, close enough to respond if needed, far enough to give us privacy.
