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“It seems rather wasteful to commandeer a driver when we’ll be gone the entire day and I’m perfectly capable of driving.”
“Is this your car?” It was a silver Audi, rather than the ubiquitous black BMW she’d ridden in before.
“It is. You’re more than welcome to sit in the back if you’d like to spread out and do some work.”
“I’d like to sit in the front if that’s all right. We’re going over the mountains, yes?” He nodded. “I do have work to do, but I think I’d better not pass up the opportunity to take in these views.”
“You won’t be disappointed.” He flashed her a great, wide smile, as if he were personally responsible for the views she would soonbe admiring. He had always been fine-looking, if a bit starchy, but with the skin around his eyes crinkling as he smiled, he was positively handsome. She had assumed that whatever warmth had been between them last night would be gone today, that he’d merely been nice to her because she was being a sucky baby with her pathetic “It’s Thanksgiving and I miss my mom” story.
When Cara got back to her rooms at the palace last night, embarrassment had set in. She had exposed so much of herself. Not so much in what she’d told Mr. Benz. Though she generally didn’t talk about her family on the job, she hadn’t told him anything terribly personal about her parents. But somehow, having him waiting for her outside that church while she lit a candle inside it had felt strangely, intensely intimate. Which made no sense: there had been a solid, stone wall between them. Perhaps it was more that she’d shown a kind of vulnerability, both by admitting she missed her family, and by allowing Mr. Benz to intuit that she was the kind of person who could be comforted by the lighting of a candle in a church. She hated showing weakness to clients. But her mom’s false cheer—speaking of false smiles—on their call last night had gotten to her. Cara could see how a day spent standing in the kitchen had aggravated her arthritis, exhausting her and making her face go so drawn that after a few minutes on the call, she couldn’t even fake it anymore.
This morning, Cara felt sheepish, but as they wound down the hill and exited through the gatehouse at the bottom, Mr. Benz gave no sign that his impression of her had changed. Or, more accurately, he gave no sign that his impression of her had changed for the worse—the bar was probably pretty low to begin with.
Suddenly, she wanted more than anything to keep yesterday’sversion of Mr. Benz for the day, rather than the argumentative version who so clearly resented her.
“Mr. Benz, may I propose something?”
“You may propose anything you like.”
“I sense abut. I may propose anything I like, but you’ll cheerfully disregard me?”
One corner of his mouth turned up. He schooled his face so quickly, though, she wondered if she’d imagined it.
“I’m giving you too much credit, aren’t I?” she asked, extinguishing her own nascent smile. “There probably won’t be cheerfulness involved. You’ll cheerlesslydisregard me.”
“Try me, Ms. Delaney, and I shall attempt to infuse my disregard with good cheer.”
“I propose a truce.” He raised his eyebrows but gave no other reaction. “I know you don’t approve of me, or of my work here. But what if we... put that on hold?”
“You are suggesting we enjoy the drive across the mountains and refrain from talking about watches and gross domestic product?”
“And from talking aboutPride and Prejudiceand the scourge of modernity. What do you say?”
“Gimmelmatt is so lovely this time of year,” he said mildly.
“Are youbribingme?”
“Of course not,” he said censoriously—but his eyes were twinkling. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Did you or did you not just strongly imply that you’ll be nice to me if I go see your cute village?”
“You’re the one who keeps calling it ‘cute.’Iwould never use such a word.” The smile she’d seen a shadow of before was threatening anew to escape.
She was having the same problem. She turned to look out the window. “I don’t know what part of this isn’t a bribe, but all right. Be nice to me today, and I’ll go to your cute village.”
“Today,” he said.
“I’m not sure we have time for it today?” She had added a full day’s worth of meetings to her schedule for Riems today.
“We don’t. I meant I’ll be nice to you today. No guarantees beyond that.”
She snorted. “Fine.”
He lost the battle and let loose an audible chuckle. “We’ll do Gimmelmatt another day.”
“But no skiing.”
That had come out too intensely. He turned, his eyes briefly searching her face before returning to the road. “No skiing,” he echoed, and not unkindly.
