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“Ms. Delaney?” He lowered the box.
Mr. Benz seemed surprised to see her here, which was fair enough. The feeling was mutual. They both said, “What are you doing here?” in unison.
Before she could answer, his brow furrowed. He glanced at her closed door, then back to her. His gaze traveled down to her feet and back up, and she felt her skin begin to buzz. There was nothing indecent about her pajamas, but they were very... small. And this was Mr. Benz who was, as ever, dressed to the nines in one of his suits.
But whatever. She was taking a shower in the bathroom in the inn she was staying at. As she had every right to. She straightened her spine. “I moved into a room here.”
“Yes. Right.” He cleared his throat. “How is Mr. Hussein?”
Huh? “I don’t know. I assume he’s fine? At least he was a bit ago when I said goodbye to him downstairs.” When Mr. Benz didn’t say anything, she said, in an attempt to extricate herself from this awkward encounter, “Well, I’m off to shower and then to sleep.”
“You are?” His expression was lightening in real time. After a beat, he looked positively delighted by her planned ablutions. He was such an enigma.
But equally puzzling was why she cared. Let the man be a mystery. It didn’t matter to her. Or it shouldn’t. The more immediate question was whathewas doing up here. “Are you spying on me again?” she asked.
“No!” he said, visibly bristling. “I’m moving some boxes for Imogen.” His expression transformed from piqued to puzzled.
“Part of your extended mission?” she asked. “Lifting up the people of Eldovia, or just lifting their stuff?”
“That, Ms. Delaney, is a very good question.”
Cara had always thought of herself as a puzzle person. She did the crossword when she was home, and she never traveled without her sudoku book. But Mr. Benz was beyond her. He was the SaturdayNew York Timescrossword, a puzzle so challenging she knew enough—or should know enough—to not even try.
“Well,” she said with false cheer, “good night.” She continued down the hallway, aware that her thin jersey-knit shorts were riding up her butt but not wanting him to see her digging them out. Assuming he was looking. Which he almost certainly wasn’t. But she couldn’t look over her shoulder to check. In case he was.
Which hewasn’t. Right?
And that was a good thing.Right?
It was official: Noar Graf was a problem. Two minutes into Cara’s latest meeting with him, it was clear that he was actively obstructing her work. What she didn’t know was why.
She interrupted him as he was saying a lot of words that didn’t mean anything, though she did appreciate that to do so in one’s second language was a skill. “So what you’re saying is that you’re not willing to provide any of the data we spoke about last time.” The data the company had used for its most recent valuation exercise. The data she’d needed two weeks ago. The data he had agreed he would bring to this meeting.
He blinked. “I wouldn’t say unwilling,” he said with a hint of affront in his tone. “As I was just explaining, the data you seek are not readily available in the format you desire.”
“Right.” She pushed back her chair, startling him. He expected her to agree with him, or even to argue, but not to simply leave.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t see any need to prolong this meeting if the information that was meant to be the point of it isn’t here, so I’m going to hunt it down myself.” She kept her tone neutral, bordering on pleasant, to contrast with her words. She had learned that the truth coming from a woman with some power could feel to a man like an attack.
She left him blinking and made for the Owl and Spruce. She now had an hourlong hole in her schedule, and one upside of staying at the pub was that it was within walking distance of the Morneau corporate offices, which were on the edge of the village. She’d gotten into the habit of taking a coffee break at the pub when she had a long enough gap in the day.
“Hello, hello.” Imogen, having learned Cara’s ways, started pulling an espresso when Cara arrived at the bar. She added hot water to it and set it in front of Cara. “Americano for the Americano.” Seamlessly, she pivoted and continued a conversation she’d been having with a young woman Cara didn’t recognize.
Cara sipped her coffee and stared at the display behind the bar, which in addition to the snow globes now included the gingerbread houses Mr. Benz had told her Kai made every year. There was one of the palace, one of the Lutheran church that was famous for its modern architecture, and one of the pub building itself. Having spent more time around Kai—Cara couldn’t say she’d gotten to know him, as he seemed like a serious lone wolf—she understood that he was never going to monetize his creations. But both the houses and the globes were really something.
“Actually, my friend here might know.” Imogen switched intoEnglish. “Erika Ulmer, this is Cara Delaney. She’s here from New York on business.” Cara and Erika shook hands. “Erika is waiting to hear if she’s been accepted to some American universities, and she’s wondering if they will be open next week.”
Erika flashed Cara a self-deprecating smile. “I’m anxiously awaiting acceptance emails. Or rejection emails—I’ve already gotten one of those. I’m trying to tell myself that at this point, I won’t hear anything until the new year, but Imogen said she thinks that unlike here, most of them will be open over the holidays.”
“I don’t know, to be honest,” Cara said. “I think most of them probably will have staff working except for the actual holiday days. But that’s a guess.”
“I’m just being impatient,” Erika said.
“It’s nerve-racking,” Cara said. “All that uncertainty, especially if you’re thinking of moving continents.”
“I’ll probably end up attending the University of Geneva. I’ve already been accepted there.”
