Two Ashenmere aides stopped talking as we passed. One looked at Dominic first, then Rhain, then me, and immediately discovered something fascinating about the floor.
The problem wasn’t that they looked at Dominic. Everyone looked at Dominic eventually. The problem was the order: Dominic, me, then the space between us. As if the distance itself meant something.
The lunch was in the smaller staff dining room because Lord Solberg preferred the salmon there. He said this to the senior trade representative with an easy smile, as if his preferences were charmingand not, in fact, a rearrangement of protocol around his appetite.
Dominic took the wall by the kitchen pass. He didn’t order food.
The senior trade representative, who had been told the enforcer was standard hospitality protocol, nodded politely and didn’t ask.
The senior trade representative was a good man. Competent. Well-briefed. Reasonably careful. He was also, unfortunately, susceptible to excellent questions from attractive men.
Rhain listened to him with a friendly, attentive face. He was, of course, making absolutely political use of every word. Within twenty minutes, the senior trade representative had told Rhain three things he had been instructed not to say.
Useful things. Not classified. Not fatal. Just useful enough.
I translated. I didn’t editorialize. Three times, I preserved the senior trade representative’s exact phrasing instead of cleaning it up, because the exact phrasing was the part Rhain wanted to hear.
Rhain caught it.
The first time, he stopped mid-bite.
The second time, his eyes touched mine over the rim of his water glass.
The third time, he smiled at the senior trade representative as if the man had said something mildly amusing, then turned that smile toward me.
The senior trade representative excused himself to take a phone call halfway through dessert. The moment he left the table, the silence became approximately the loudest silence I had ever sat in.
Rhain put his fork down. “Ms.Cordero.”
“Lord Solberg.”
“You translatedå gå rundt grøtenwithout a beat of hesitation.”
“It’s an idiom.”
Something behind the amusement sharpened. “It’s an idiom most translators with three years of professional Norwegian have to think about.”
“I trained at Frogner.”
“Yes.”
He leaned back slightly. He looked at me as if I had become more interesting by refusing to become less dangerous.
“And you rendered the Sichuanese inflection in Beijing standard.”
“Standard practice for a multilateral meeting.”
He turned the water glass a quarter turn. “Standard practice would’ve been ignoring that the inflection existed.”
“Then I suppose we’ve both learned something today.”
His smile moved slowly.
Across the room, Dominic’s gaze landed on the side of my face.
Rhain noticed that too.
I set my water glass down.
