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ChapterSeven
FINN
Is she a honey pot? A seductress designed to get me to … what? Sleep with her? Not kill someone? If she was recruiting me, she wouldn’t need to sleep with me. That’s used for long-game ops where you want to establish a relationship and use them over time. She wouldn’t need that if she merely wanted me to be part of her organization. All these thoughts knock inside my head as I let the bell person in with the food.
“I’m your personal butler, Mr. Jones.” He gestures behind him, and three other staff people roll the carts inside. In very little time, they put a white cloth on the table, spread out the dishes, and then quietly bow out.
“They’re gone.”
She peeks her head out, hiding her body behind the door. “It’s safe?” Her eyes fall to the food. “Are you sure you didn’t order the whole menu?”
“I left a few things out. You can take a bit of everything and decide what you like best.”
She slips out, tightening the belt of the hotel robe she threw over her purple silky pajamas. I hate the robe. If there was a fireplace, I’d throw it in there along with the rest of her clothes. She’d be forced to walk around in just the silk shorts and top. I’d be hard all the time, but it’d be worth it.
“There’s escargot, which is snails, French onion soup, bouillabaisse, and bourguignon, cr?pes, some salmon mouse tarte, and a salad. Oh, and bread. Because what is a French meal without bread?” I pull out a chair for her.
“Snails? I guess that’s famous here.” She doesn’t sound enthused.
“Don’t touch it if it doesn’t interest you. No shame in that.”
“I can’t let it go to waste when I’m paying for it.”
She sounds worried about the cost, which is consistent with her cover of being a comped travel blogger. Her consistency is fucking unreal. “It’s part of the comped benefits,” I lie.
She perks right up. “Oh? Is that right? I guess I’ll try it then. How do I eat these things? Do I put the shell in my mouth? Do I crack it open? I skipped over those videos because I figured I’d never try them. Hold on. I need to get my tripod so I can record this.”
I hold out my hand. “I’ll take the videos.”
“No. You should eat.” She waves a hand toward the plates. “I usually travel alone so I don’t bother anyone with my quirks. I know it can be irritating for some people to see us videotaping stuff all the time or taking photos, but it’s work. No one is getting angry with a lawyer reading a brief at the table, but I guess this job seems less valuable.” She shrugs. “It’s not that I set out to earn money this way. I actually just quit my real-life job because of my grandma’s gift, and it ballooned into something bigger. Gosh, I’m babbling. I’ll be right back.” She jumps up to fetch her tripod.
I watch in bemusement. Georgia is the most engaging person I’ve ever met. To be fair, it’s not like I make a lot of close connections. That’s not good for my line of work, but I’ve also never met anyone like her before. She’s got this thing inside her that makes me want to smile. I’m not a smiler. I’m a killer. Killers don’t smile. We are expressionless ninety-nine percent of the time, and the other one percent, we’re frowning. It’s in the international code of assassins’ handbook.
I’m not smiling when she returns.
“Is the food bad?” She sets the tripod in front of her plate. “I don’t want to be sick. I once got food poisoning on a rafting trip because this one guy insisted on cooking the fish. He said that he went to culinary school. Turns out it was like a merit badge for the Scouts he earned when he was twelve. Anyway, we all got sick, and our trip ended up getting cut short. They had to medevac a couple of the campers out of there.” She tilts her head. “Those posts were kind of what made me famous. They went viral.”
I make a mental note to look this up and see if there’s a dead body anywhere near her boating trip.
“I haven’t touched the food. I was waiting for you.”I may have waited for you my whole life and didn’t realize it.
She narrates trying each dish, and even though she’s afraid of the snails, she doesn’t make any disgusted noises or faces.
“Not as bad as I thought, but I don’t know if I would order them because they’re expensive and they really just taste like herbs and butter. They’re kind of tasty. I also like this little fork and am tempted to eat all my meals with a little fork from now on.” She holds up the small three-pronged utensil. “What should I try next? The beef? I have two beef dishes here. God, doesn’t it look good? I wish you guys were here so you could smell this.”
She takes several more photos and sits down to eat. “This is actually really awkward to record with you here. I’m used to doing it alone.”
“I’m enjoying it. I usually eat alone too.” But I don’t want to do that anymore.
She gives me a wry grin. “I’m done now. I’ll edit the photos and post them later. You never told me what you do.”
Is this where she starts digging into my past? Trying to get me to blow my cover? Or maybe she’s testing my mettle to see if I’m worthy to be recruited. “I’m here on business.” I start vague and wait to see if she presses me.
“No museums or shopping or climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower?”
“It wasn’t on my itinerary.”
She leans toward me as if to share a secret. “I do not want to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower either, but I do want to go to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa. I know it’s a tiny painting and that you can’t spend more than a minute looking at her, but it’s so famous. I want to see what the fuss is all about.”
