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“How are you feeling?” His voice is raspy from lack of sleep.
“Nauseous,” I whisper. “Shaken, but better. You?”
“Yeah. I got you food.”
He helps me sit up and arranges a tray with breakfast on it.
“Don’t you want to lay down? You look so tired. I only want a little to hold me over.” I nibble a croissant, then lay back down on the bed, exhausted.
Wordlessly, he climbs into bed next to me. Takes the croissant from my hand. Feeds me little bits.
“So. You said something about me being yourwifelast night? Would you care to elaborate on that, Mr. Gerard?”
He looks at me as if I just sprouted a second head. “Of course you’ll marry me,” he says sternly. “You’re having my baby and I love you. Why wouldn’t you marry me?”
He loves me.
“I love you, too,” I say, my voice trembling. “But you didn’taskme.”
“I need to ask?”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Yes!”
When he shoots me that boyish smirk, my heart turns in my chest. “Cosette. I love you. The best way I know to protect you and care for you and our baby is to marry you. Will you marry me, or do I have to steal you away to Vegas and find an Elvis?”
I smile back. “Yes,” I say tremulously. “No need to pull out the Vegas threat.”
We eat in comfortable silence for a little while until I ask him, “Who was on the phone?” Could be anyone after everything we’ve been through the past few days.
“Thayer.”
“Ah. Did you tell him what happened?”
“Yeah. I did. He and Savannah are still in Paris. She’ll be by to see you soon.”
He’s still distracted. He isn’t really here. Something’s troubling him.
Silence reigns for a minute while he works his jaw. “But that’s not why he called.”
I sip the juice he hands me.
“Why did he call?”
I watch him draw in a deep breath.
Something is wrong. I stare at him.
“Rousseau is dead.”
Rousseau… his informant… is dead.
Yesterday she was alive and breathing and now…
“Dead?” I repeat in a shocked whisper. “How?”
“Suicide, allegedly. Only there was no note, she had plans to go out to dinner with her fiancé that night, and also had plans to meet up again with me. There was a gun placed in her right hand, but she always used her left.”
“My God,” I whisper. The lives they lead, the people they know—they’re dangerous and deadly and walk a razor’s edge between death and life.
