The Terrace at Night Job

As Eliot had hoped, Ophelia and Devil had quickly adapted to life in San Lorenzo. Nearly every morning found them at the lagoon, swimming laps or playing with a Frisbee. As her tan deepened, her hair had lightened; she was nearly transformed. Not that Eliot minded, as long as she was happy. After playing and swimming for a while, Ophelia would lay in the sun and read (still, frequently, to him. He enjoyed listening to her in the sun on their beach even more than their reading experiences before), then maybe go back to the cabin and write some things. She still hadn’t decided how her new book was going to go, but was exchanging a lot of emails with her agent. Then they’d all head up to the main house for one of Eliot’s excellent lunches. He felt he couldn’t legally ask for more than a blissfully happy wife that he got more or less to himself on the beach all the time.

“I got you a surprise,” she said at lunch one day. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m sure I won’t, Princess,” he answered, refilling her tea glass. They didn’t go out often, but already Ophelia had charmed her way into the hearts of nearly every restaurateur in San Lorenzo. Sweet tea was now on the menu at all their favorite places, many of which also kept a good table in reserve for them, just in case. “What is it?”

“I got you 10 sessions with the executive chef at the San Lorenzo Culinary Institute,” she said excitedly, producing an envelope from the inside of her jacket. It was a vintage beach jacket, not unlike one she had seen and loved in Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, that she had found on a shopping trip with General Flores’ oldest daughter. Eliot suspected that through some very convoluted heist-gone-wrong series of events, Ophelia and Amalia had been separated at birth. General Flores agreed.

He reached for the envelope, kissing her fingers quickly before pulling the letter free and reading it in stunned silence.

“Phee, how did you do this?”

“Do you like it?” she asked, just to be sure. He was almost glowing, so she felt safe assuming he did. “I thought you could get him to teach you how to make that pasta dish you love so much. He invented it.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, still staring at the letter, which was a formal welcome from the executive chef, written especially to Eliot. This wasn’t a form letter, sent to anyone who applied. Chef Revalo noted his “contributions to the government of San Lorenzo” and praised his help in keeping the country free and of the people, then signed with a real pen, not a printed version of his signature. The offer was real and honestly extended.

“I called him,” she smiled. “You know I do more than just historical research and look for vintage clothing stores. I found out who invented it, then called the culinary institute to see if I could sign you up for classes.”

“These aren’t classes that people just walk in and sign up for,” he pointed out. “This is a series of one-on-one sessions with a master chef, Phee. Do you know how impossible that is?”

“Nothing is impossible when you’re talking to one of your biggest fans,” she replied. “And it turns out Chef Revalo is a huge fan.”

“What did you have to sign for him?”

“You wound me,” she grinned. “To suggest I would be so mercenary.”

“I apologize,” he chuckled. “I shouldn’t have assumed that you signed and gave him anything.”

“Actually, I promised that if you invent a dish while you’re here, you’ll name it in his honor.”

He waited.

“And that if I write another in the Blitzkrieg Bop series, I’ll have a character named for him,” she finished.

“There it is,” he smiled. “I can’t thank you enough, Princess. And I can’t wait to start these classes. Do they have a start date?”

“Nope. You just call when you’re ready and ask for his personal secretary Gianna. She’ll set up the first session and you can go from there.”

“This almost makes the surprise I got for you look too small,” he said. “Because you think I don’t know this is our seven month anniversary, but I do.”

She blushed; she knew he hadn’t forgotten. She was just, as a rule, not used to men who remembered those sorts of details. Her other married coworkers, all of them, had led her to believe that even the most persistent of reminders could not penetrate the spousal brain. She tried very hard not to take his behavior for granted.

“Eliot Spencer, you never do anything small. Is there a parade coming to the house?”

He pulled two plane tickets from his shirt pocket.

“No parade,” he said. “Just a week in Monaco. And General Flores asked if Devil could stay with them while we’re gone, so you don’t need to worry about him.”

Devil woofed happily from the living room, letting them know he was fine staying with his friend the General, who loved late night snackums as much as Devil did.

“Monaco? Really? I can’t wait! Where are we staying?”

“The Hotel de Paris Monte-Carlo,” he answered. “I couldn’t get the Princess Grace suite, but I spoke to a manager who promised he’d give us a tour while we’re there.”

“It sounds perfect,” she sighed. “I can’t wait.”

“Good,” he answered. “Because we leave Tuesday.”

The commercial flight to Monaco wasn’t terrible, because it was only 30 minutes long. Thirty minutes, however, was long enough to remind Ophelia and Eliot that travel by private jet was more expensive for a reason, and that reason was sanity. They were relieved to step into a town car and be whisked to their luxurious hotel, and their room with the magnificent view of the ocean.

“Lunch?” Eliot offered. Ophelia grinned impudently at him as she checked her hair in the mirror. “What? They eat lunch here too.”

“While I appreciate that you picked the hotel based on what you thought I’d like, I saw on the website that there are two Michelin starred restaurants here. You have shown admirable restraint in coming here to drop off our bags.” She watched his reflection in the mirror for a moment. “Ah, we have reservations, don’t we?”

He nodded bashfully.

“En avant,” she said, grabbing her purse off the back of the couch. Of course she was already dressed perfectly for lunch in one of the fanciest bistros on the planet. And of course, she had watched to see what shirt he had put on the morning, so she coordinated. They weren’t dressed alike, but someone who was more than a casual observer would realize they belonged together.

“Do you have a tie?” she asked, a wink in her voice. He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her as he pushed the elevator button.

“In my pocket,” he said. “I was prepared.”

“More’s the pity,” she answered, rubbing her cheek against his. They were nearly late for their reservation anyway.

After two days of sun and shopping and exploring and eating, the third day found them in Monaco’s National Museum, discussing the paintings. Specifically, Ophelia would point out a painting, and Eliot would tell her whether it was real or fake, and the last time he knew for a fact that Parker had stolen it. Or Sophie had stolen it. Or both of them working together had stolen it. Ophelia was having a hard time repressing her giggles, which led Eliot to embellish some of the details, because he wasn’t an art expert—not the usual kind, anyway—but he liked that she thought he was entertaining. Another of his favorite things was seeing her dressed up, as she had for their adventure today. It was more than a little satisfying to see people notice a pretty girl who thought he was funny.

They were standing in front of Van Gogh’s Terrace At Night, Eliot telling her a heavily (extremely heavily) edited version of the heist he knew it had been involved in, when Ophelia’s recurring nightmare struck loudly, from across a crowded gallery.

“Ophelia Darling! What on earth are you doing here?”

This was not the voice of pleased inquiry asking; the tone was, at best, condescending.

He was standing behind her, gesturing in front of her with his hands, which was how it was that Eliot felt his wife turn to stone. She didn’t turn to see who had called after her.

“Phee?” he whispered. “Are you okay?” She clearly wasn’t; she had turned an unhealthy pale. She groped blindly for his hand and gripped it in a way that made him glad he wasn’t a thief. “Who is it, Phee? I can make her go away.”

At that, she finally turned her head in the direction of heels clicking on marble across the floor to them. He turned too, to see an older lady in a paisley dress dragging an alarmed looking man towards them.

“Not yet,” Ophelia said through dry lips.

“It’s not even the season for Monaco,” the woman went on as if Ophelia had answered or even acknowledged her. “Unless of course you’ve finally left that dreadful dreary place in the west. What was it, dear? I can never remember if it was Palo Alto or Pasadena.”

“Portland,” she said stiffly.

“Oh, that couldn’t have been it,” she said dismissively. “I just can’t imagine you’d live in a place like Washington.”

“Oregon,” she corrected. Not that the woman stopped talking to listen.

“And who is your friend my dear? I had no idea you were traveling with a man these days. I thought you’d put all that behind you. Can’t you be bothered to even introduce us?” She paused just long enough to give Eliot an appraising glance. He was used to those, but couldn’t pin down why this one was more insulting than most. “Or have you hired a bodyguard? Surely John hasn’t continued to be that much of a problem. You could have at least chosen someone more discreet, I can practically see the gun in his coat. Well? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself or are you going to continue standing there, staring as if you’ve seen a ghost?”

Eliot had felt himself go incandescent with rage before, but he’d never experienced holding on to another person when it happened to them. He wasn’t entirely sure which comment it was that jolted her out of stone silent shock into rage; there were so many to choose from.

“If you insist,” she snapped the words off with such precision, Eliot felt like they’d slice through the unlucky listener. “Eliot, these are my parents, Dr. and Dr. Mason. Mother, Father, this is my husband Eliot Spencer.”

The three of them stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity until Ophelia shattered it. Her voice, when she spoke would have splintered glass at 20 paces.

“If that’s all,” she said with a formality Eliot had never heard her use, “we’ll be going. Enjoy the museum.”

The sound of her own heels on the marble tile echoed like gunshots as she strode out. Eliot hurried to catch up with her.

“Phee, wait,” he said urgently. She didn’t slow down, nor did she give the appearance of wanting to until he grabbed her arm. “Stop! Just wait a minute, okay? You’ll walk out into traffic like this, Phee.”

“I don’t want to talk to her,” she said, crisply and evenly. That, Eliot thought, was why people called them sharp words. She wasn’t shouting, hadn’t even raised her voice. God help them if she did. “And I’m sorry she messed up your plan. Can we come back another time?”

“It’s a big museum,” he offered. “We don’t have to leave.” Even if it wasn’t a big museum, her mother wasn’t more than he could handle. Although that might start a discussion of all the ways he might interpret “handle”.

“Eliot.” That was a clear a warning as he’d ever heard from her. She was shaking with fury.

“Come here,” he said, gesturing to a shady spot on the plaza. She nodded, waiting until they were in a more secluded spot to lean against him, her face buried in her hands. He kissed her on the temple. “You had no idea they were here, did you?”

“You’ve seen how they correspond,” she said, with a vague wave in the direction of the museum. “Postcards without a return address, at wildly irregular intervals. I not only didn’t know they were here, I don’t know why they’re here.”

“You don’t have to talk to them,” he promised. “But we don’t have to let this interrupt our day, either.”

“You don’t know what she’s like,” Ophelia insisted. “If she doesn’t like the answers I give to her questions, she’ll just get louder until we get escorted out.”

He glanced over her shoulder to see her father standing just outside the door of the museum.

“Sit down right here,” he instructed. “Don’t turn around. I’ll be back in a minute. Just breathe, and remember where we were in the Van Gogh story. I wasn’t finished with it yet.”

After waiting until she nodded her understanding and sat down, he walked over to meet her father.

“Dr. Mason,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest.

“Mr. Spencer? Is that right?” He was softer spoken than Eliot had expected, although that could have been the by-product of years of living with his wife. “Is what Ophelia said true? You’re married?”

“Yes, it’s true,” he answered cautiously. “Are we going to have a problem?”

“Is she happy?”

“I…I’m sorry? What did you say?”

“I asked if she’s happy,” Dr. Mason answered. “That’s all I’m worried about. She likely wouldn’t tell you, but she’s had a rough time. And I’m sorry to say that many times her mother has…not made her life easier. But she deserves to be happy, and if she’s found that with you that’s all I want to know.”

“Would you tell her that?” he asked. “I think she’d appreciate it more coming from you. But I believe she’s happy. That’s all I want for her too.”

Dr. Mason looked to where she was sitting, then back to Eliot.

“Do you think she’ll talk to me?” the older man asked.

“In case you’ve forgotten, she likes to be talked to and not at,” he warned, although not as harshly as he might have. “That’s true for me and for anyone else. And I don’t know what she used to be like, but she fights back now.”

“She gets it honest,” he murmured, which was the most ungrammatical sentence Eliot had heard him utter so far, and also the most authentic.

He sat down on the other end of the bench quietly. Maybe, Eliot thought, waiting for her to speak first. Until now, he had been idly curious about how she’d respond to an interrogation. Not enough to actually try one. It was with no small amount of satisfaction he noted that she had already given up all the information she intended; unless the tone shifted a lot, any other answer she gave was going to be a remix of name, rank, and serial number. God, she was awesome.

“Congratulations, Feelie,” he said, still quietly. “I saw the penultimate book in your series will be released soon. You should be quite proud.”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“I’ve read them,” he continued. “Your grandmother would be proud too. She would be tickled at the way you’ve portrayed her. The rest of Savannah would be shocked. So you’ve achieved two things.”

“How long are you here?” she asked impatiently.

“Only another day more,” he said. “Your mother and I are on a cruise ship that departs tomorrow afternoon at 4. The Bard of the Seas. You can watch us sail away.”

“How appropriate,” she said. She was still quiet, but her voice had a hard edge. “Have a safe trip.”

Eliot had been watching the exchange, such as it was, while leaning against a tree with one hand over his mouth to hide his expression.

“Congratulations on your wedding as well. I’m sorry we missed it.”

“It was small, like I wanted. We didn’t have guests. And we’ve moved to a new place. My mail is being forwarded for a while, but eventually it won’t be.” She didn’t volunteer that she wouldn’t have invited them, but Eliot felt like she also did an admirable job not implying it.

“Have you moved to Monaco? I can see why you’d like it.”

“We’re just here visiting,” she said, one of her hands finally unclenching. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

“Let us treat you to lunch tomorrow,” he offered. She shook her head.

“Sorry, we’re busy,” she said. “We’ve already made plans.”

“Phee,” Eliot prompted. But he was smart enough to be out of striking distance when he did it.

“We have reservations at Le Vistamar tomorrow at 11:30, and we intended to meet another couple from the cruise,” her father explained. “But we can see them any time. Please, join us. Both of you.”

She looked up at Eliot, who nodded.

“Fine,” she said shortly. “But you have to—”

“I know, Feelie,” he said gently. “I will speak to her. In the meantime, we have another appointment this afternoon. We will be leaving the museum. Your mother, as you know, is not a fan of post-Renaissance art.”

“Boy do I,” she answered, with something that might almost have been a smile.

“Until tomorrow, then.” He stood and offered Eliot his hand. “Le Vistamar,” he repeated.

“11:30,” Eliot confirmed. “We’ll see you there.”

“We don’t—,” she began, before her father was even out of earshot.

“But we will,” his voice was soft but insistent. “Because they’re your parents, because we’re all here, and because sometimes you don’t get another chance. I don’t think this is a sitcom where you’ll work out all of your problems in half an hour; it’s a lunch where we can sit and eat and drink and talk about some things and then they’ll leave. You need to take this opportunity, Phee.”

She raised a look to him that he understood quite well. He had not mentioned his dad since they got married, and out of respect for what she assumed he wished, she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t pushed for Eliot to do anything about speaking to his family. This, he was certain, was why. They’d barely been in the room together five minutes and he had lost track of the number of insults her mother had hurled at her. He was going to have to fight down his very strong protective urge to get through a single meal, but he understood a lot more about Ophelia than he had 15 minutes ago. And no matter what happened, she was giving them a chance they didn’t deserve. But he’d make sure she didn’t give more than that.

“Yeah, I did send my dad a letter and tell him we got married. I know a call would have been faster, but I was a coward and couldn’t do it. And no, I haven’t heard back from him, but my sister called. She wants to meet you.”

“So we left the country for an undetermined amount of time?” She was, in general, a huge fan both of irony and of pointing out irony to whoever was in her listening audience. “Can we leave this country and go see your sister now?”

“You know, she said the same thing,” he said, sitting down next to her. “I told her maybe over a holiday. Easter or Christmas or something.”

“Jones, Easter is next week.” He was pretty sure that wasn’t right, but he still understood her point.

“Then it won’t be this one, will it?”

“You don’t understand,” she started. He figured they’d get back to his sister later.

“I know, but I want to try,” he said. “It’s important for me to understand you. And a meal with them might help, or it might make it worse. But we won’t know until we try.”

Out on the street, he saw a group of unmistakably American tourists getting on a cruise line shuttle. While her mother and another woman chattered to each other, her father turned and waved. To Eliot’s relief, she waved back.

“Let’s get back to our tour,” he coaxed. “There’s a Picasso on the 2^nd floor you have to hear about. Parker would be furious if she found out we were this close and I didn’t tell you.”

She grabbed for his hand as they went back inside the cool museum, ready to hear about stolen art and think of something, anything, besides their impending lunch with her parents.

Late that night, she stood on the balcony in a fancy and unbelievably expensive peignoir set, watching the night life of Monaco play out below them, a fresh cocktail in her hand. Watching her through the window, Eliot thought she’d make an excellent travel poster.

Eliot joined her with his own drink a few minutes later.

“Staying out here won’t make the sun stay down,” he observed. “Night doesn’t go on forever anywhere.”

“Alaska,” she countered.

“That’s fair,” he agreed. “You’d hate it.”

“We don’t have to,” she repeated. He’d lost count of how many times.

He put his arm around her.

“Are you scared?”

“It’s not that I’m scared,” she said. “It’s that they spent most of my life making it abundantly plain that they didn’t have time for me, and that I interfered with their plans in every way possible. I don’t know why they think they can demand time from me now and think that’s reasonable.”

He set his glass down on the glass-top table behind him.

“You’re scared they won’t show up,” he guessed. “And you’ll be left sitting there, knowing that even though they asked for time, they didn’t follow through on it.”

“Maybe,” she said softly.

“Look at me,” he requested. She turned, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “The difference is that this time, you won’t be there alone, Phee. I’ll be there. And I would do literally anything to have your time and your undivided attention in a world-renowned restaurant.”

“She’s going to be rude,” Ophelia warned. “She’s going to be rude about you, just like she was today. And I won’t take it. I won’t tolerate it. And I won’t sit there while she gets up on her high horse about paying for lunch in some fancy restaurant when my expected payment is to sit there and listen while she explains, again, how inconvenient this lunch really was and how much it’s costing her personally in embarrassment at having to be seen with me, someone she’s literally gone around the world to avoid, and you, while she makes jokes about you being a security guard.”

“It’s all right, Phee. I’ve been through worse. I’ve—”

“You shouldn’t have to go through worse because of me! I didn’t marry you so that you could experience an over-degreed harpy insulting you on the Mediterranean! I don’t want you to go through worse because of me. She thinks she’s going to embarrass me by degrading you and I…I won’t, Eliot. I love you so much you’d be scared if you really knew. And it’s not worth lunch anywhere, with anyone, for her to get whatever digs she still feels she has to make at me through you.”

She was breathing so hard she nearly choked on her drink, which only made her more frustrated.

“I thought you married me for my body,” he replied. “You’ve really surprised me with this whole love thing.”

“You’re an ass,” she declared, flouncing back into their room. “I scorn you, scurvy companion.”

“I do love nothing in the world so well as you,” he shot back. “Is not that strange?”

“That’s not even from the same play!”

“It isn’t,” he laughed, “but it’s one you like better.”

He followed her back in, closing the balcony doors behind them.

“I have an idea,” he offered.

“Go on.”

“Why don’t we see how vintage lingerie looks on the floor?”

Another of his favorite things was watching her walk across the room while undressing, leaving her shoes, clothes, and accessories where they fell in a trail behind her.

“You’re just trying to distract me,” she giggled later.

“Maybe,” he answered. “Is it working?”

He was really, really good at timing his questions.

He stayed awake long after she went to sleep, pondering how he could answer her mother’s questions tomorrow, because she was sure to have them. Ophelia tended to take things at face value, which surprised him when he told her at first that he was a retrieval specialist. Of course, he reflected, she had probably deduced that meant “some sort of criminal but with the veneer of altruism” immediately, which saved her the trouble of follow-up questions while having the added bonus of not making her an accessory after the fact. Based on today’s display, he didn’t have feelings either way about making her mother an accessory, but he still didn’t want to drag Ophelia into that.

<Eliot>: I need a backstory.

<Sophie>: Are you doing a job? Without us?

<Eliot>: Not exactly.

<Sophie>…

<Eliot>: Ran into Phee’s parents. Meeting them for lunch.

<Sophie>: Do you know how hard it is to create a story that’s in-law proof?!

<Eliot>: Just something that will make them not ask more questions.

<Sophie>: Fine. Check your email in the morning.

<Eliot>: Thanks, Soph.

<Sophie>: You realize it’s still day before yesterday here, right?

<Eliot>: You want me to pretend you’re not in Marrakesh with Tara and Parker pulling off the jewel heist of the century, then.

Having finished with that, he set about trying to figure the optimal time to set the alarm so that they would end up in the shower together. She wouldn’t need less distraction in the morning.

The next morning, he wandered through the bathroom while she was still getting ready, certain she was dragging her feet on the process. To help take her mind off an unavoidable but probably not life altering situation, he was wearing a vintage-style pair of trousers along with suspenders, but no shirt. She had found the pants on a shopping trip with Amalia, but the first time he saw them was at the tailor’s shop when he had to go try them on to be altered. At the time, he had shrugged and gone along with it, because in the big picture a pair of pants was nothing; he was just glad she was so easy to please. He was slightly less glad when both girls had turned up at the tailor’s to approve the finished product. He didn’t see where Amalia’s opinion was even necessary; Ophelia didn’t mention that she had bargained Amalia down from taking his measurements herself.

Standing in the steamy bathroom, he talked for a full three minutes before he realized she wasn’t listening, nor was she still brushing her teeth.

“Stop, or you’ll go blind,” he whispered. “And you can’t go to lunch in your underwear, no matter how good it looks on you. You have 25 minutes to be ready.”

He still waited just inside the bedroom door to hear her turn on the sink and spit out a mouthful of toothpaste before he finished getting ready in the sitting room of their suite.

He was curious to see how she dressed today, and what she might be trying to communicate, pondering while he pulled a tie from his bag.

“Phee,” he called. “Is a green tie okay?” She had set out a pair of green velvet shoes the night before, which he could only assume she meant to wear today.

“Fine,” she called back unenthusiastically. “It’ll be great.”

“Four more minutes,” he warned. “Then I’m coming in there to pull you out, ready or not.”

She had a slight tendency towards “five more minutes”, which could range all the way up to two hours, depending on how the day was going, but in general if they had plans, there was no urging necessary on his part, and they had never been late to anything because she couldn’t decide what to wear. He didn’t normally have to go all caveman on her to get her out the door; it was a precedent that made today more traumatic.

She opened the door quietly and padded out into the living room in her stockinged feet. Eliot was so stunned he dropped his cufflinks.

“Should I change?” she asked, watching the cufflinks bounce away rather than watching his face, which told him his reaction to this was critical.

His mind raced straight into a blank wall as his mouth tried to form words. She looked like she’d stepped out of one of his dreams; he couldn’t believe he was about to have to make her leave (with him!) and go out into the real world.

Her dress had started out as three vintage dresses and two skirts, none of them in great shape. But Amalia knew the best seamstress in San Lorenzo, Ophelia never met a clothing challenge with a chance at defeating her, and the three of them had huddled up together for a week designing this dress. He knew she was excited about it, but he hadn’t seen it and she had been enigmatically quiet about it. Now he knew why.

Her dress graduated from an orange copper down to a deep burgundy on a dress that had originally been a simple maxi dress, but that now featured layers of shorter skirts in graduated fall colors. They had repurposed a green scarf as a belt, with the ends pulled through both sides in the suggestion of a flared peplum. The long sleeves they had created from the excess length of the skirt fell into sleeves that belled at the wrist, and the unsalvageable top had been reconstructed with embroidery starting on the sleeves and building across the bodice to a huge bow just below her shoulders that was an uncanny simulation of wings. She’d designed it with Eliot in mind, confiding to Amalia that while wings were impractical for everyday use, she still liked his idea of them. It was, in short, the perfect combination of her fairy costume that he adored, the outfit she’d worn on their first date, and the dress she’d worn for their wedding.

He continued to stare while she nervously shook out the fuller part of her skirt.

“Jones?” There was a possibility, she supposed, that she had miscalculated his tolerance for this kind of thing.

“Jesus, Phee,” he breathed.

She smiled in relief, turning in a circle so he could see the entire dress.

His cuffs forgotten, he paced slowly to where she stood to put one arm around her waist and take her hand in his. She reached up to curl her hand around his neck, her thumb softly stroking across his cheek. She was wearing her original engagement ring on her right hand; he understood that to mean she was gearing up in every way possible.

“You’re still not getting out of this,” he whispered, but with an affectionate smile. “But I respect the effort.”

“You don’t have to go,” she said. “I can do this alone.”

“Sorry, Princess. You gave up facing things alone when you agreed to marry me. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t read the fine print.” But then she relented. “For you, in my respect, are all the world. Then how can it be said I am alone when all the world is here to look on me?”

She had been wrong at the Faire; her ability to recite Shakespeare from memory was a lot more fun than it had sounded. Sophie, on the other hand, had been right: Ophelia communicated with her clothes. And what she was communicating to him right now was that his was the opinion that mattered to her today.

He stepped back, just half a step, and dropped a hand into his coat pocket.

“I got you a present,” he said. “I wasn’t sure when to give it to you. Can I put it on you?”

At her nod of assent, he walked behind her and draped a necklace across her collarbone. The length was perfect for her dress today, stopping just above the expertly remade neckline. She turned to the mirror to study the pendant, which was an ornately carved carnelian encased in a silver cage formed to resemble the veins of a leaf.

She turned back to him and brushed her lips across his in the slightest kiss.

“I love it, my wolf who was once a soldier. It’s beautiful and I thank you.” That was the sort of thing that made him think she had powers beyond that of a mere mortal; he had never told her that detail of his dream.

“The wildest have not a heart such as yours,” he said. He’d been studying. “We should go.”

“Your cufflinks are on the floor,” she noted. He bent to get them, letting her take them and fix them on his cuffs, just so he could stand close to her for a long moment more. Her expensive perfume enveloped them both in a little bubble he was suddenly loathe to burst.

“Ready?”

She sighed deeply and nodded. He held his hand out for her, to steady her as she stepped into her shoes, then put a hand to her back while he held the door. She fidgeted while they waited for the elevator, and stared resolutely at her shoes as they crossed the lobby to the taxi stand, thus missing a number of envious and enraptured glances, and the romantic sigh of the doorman. Ordinarily, Eliot would have punched someone for that reaction while he was standing right there, but the doorman had proved to be a kindly old man who said Ophelia reminded him of his granddaughter and warned Eliot that if he should step out of line with her, the old man would bare knuckle fight him to the ground. Which had been a surprising turn in the conversation, but Eliot could respect it.

“I should have bet you they wouldn’t show up,” she said as they approached the hostess. Eliot asked in a language she’d never heard if the rest of their party was there. She guessed. After a few exchanges, the lady nodded and led them to a table. He took the chair with the best view of the door, placing her in the shade.

“What was that?” she asked.

“Monegasque,” he answered. “Native language of Monaco. I speak a little.”

“That was an entire conversation, Jones. You should have listed it on your resume.”

“It was overkill,” he grinned. “You were already impressed.”

A waiter appeared to inquire whether they wanted cocktails; he ordered two without looking at the menu, but the server seemed impressed. Despite the crowd, the service at the bar was quick and the waiter returned with their drinks. Fortification, Eliot thought. He was aware that Ophelia became a happy drunk under the influence of champagne, and while he wasn’t exactly trying to stack the deck, maybe he could help anesthetize the situation a little. It wasn’t generally the way he preferred to deal with bullies, but it attracted less attention.

As she predicted, her parents were late enough to make both a point and an entrance. He looked to the disturbance with the hostess before looking back, his gaze holding hers. “They’re here. Remember that it’s just lunch and they’re leaving this afternoon. And I’m not. Okay?”

“We could still get out the back?” she offered hopefully. “I speak really terrible French. I could make everyone believe I misread the exit sign.”

He watched as her father said something to her mother, somewhat forcefully, before they arrived at the table. Eliot could guess what it had been by the scowl that crossed her mother’s face.

“The right hand of the fairies can face down anyone,” he reminded her.

They both rose to meet her parents, her father reaching across the table to shake Eliot’s hand. Eliot couldn’t tell if he took the seat next to Ophelia to sit closer to her, or if her mother took the seat across from her to try to pin her to it.

“How have you been, Ophelia? We never hear from you anymore. Don’t you have a post office in Pomona?” Okay, Eliot thought. Pin her down it was. He hadn’t expected her to strike so soon, but a look at Ophelia showed she was neither shocked nor surprised. Just painfully resigned.

“It’s hard to address a letter to a cruise ship when your destinations are decided by popular vote of the passengers, and you never read your email.”

“Who has the time for that?” she answered, ignoring that Ophelia had provided a direct answer to her questions without actually providing information. “We’re so busy with our friends and our cruise activities. And here you are married! How did you even meet Evan?”

Ophelia flicked a glance at her father, who put his hand over his wife’s. It was the first time Ophelia had so much as blinked.

“Barbara,” he said quietly.

“Eliot, then,” she amended, with poor grace. “What does he even do?”

“You could ask him,” Ophelia retorted. “He’s literally right here. And he can hear you just fine.”

She sipped deeply from her champagne cocktail, mostly because if she had her mouth full of something, she might be able to squash the temptation to tell her mother a story that was not based at all in fact, but sprang either straight from her imagination or straight from the fan fiction her students were still writing about Dr. Wes Abernathy. Just to watch her reaction. Had Eliot not already read Sophie’s ideas, he might have let her go with it, just because watching her mind at work was fun, and he was pretty sure he had seen the words “Murder Chef” flare in her eyes before she pulled her gaze from his face.

“I’m a military consultant,” he volunteered. “I retired from the Army and—”

“In Portland? I had no idea it was such a war zone,” Barbara sniffed.

“In San Lorenzo,” he continued undaunted. “I had the honor of working with their Minister of Defense during another operation. He offered us the opportunity to come to San Lorenzo for the winter so Ophelia could have a sunny place to write while I consult on troop training.”

Ophelia smiled with a proud fondness; his version of the truth sounded so hopeful and optimistic, and not at all like he, Tomas, and thirty troops were going to spend a week on an island off the coast without even basic amenities. She couldn’t imagine anything more hideous, especially knowing that their current chateau was less than three miles away, and General Flores’ palatial estate was less than 5 and both had running water and air conditioning, not to mention refrigerated food and all the cocktails anyone could want.

“Eliot’s very good at his job,” she put in. “He gets to choose where he wants to go. I’m flattered he considered me in this choice.”

“How odd,” her mother said acidly. “You don’t look like any hired gun I’ve ever seen.”

“I’d have to say,” Eliot answered politely, “if you’ve seen any, they weren’t very good at their job.”

Ophelia had to concentrate very hard on not spitting her drink back into the glass.

“Of course, it must be hard to teach anyone if you’re always flittering about,” her mother said, abruptly changing the subject. “Are you still scribbling your little books?”

Ophelia pushed Eliot’s drink closer to him before he could speak, a small act for which he was grateful.

“I just finished my first contract for six books,” she replied. “You should look for the last one; it’s coming out next year.” She didn’t offer either of her parents a copy of the next one coming out, which he guessed was significant. “And I retired from teaching. Since I can write from anywhere, it seemed more convenient.”

“Very true,” her father said. “How long were you in the service, Eliot?”

“Twenty years, sir.”

“Come from a military family?”

“No sir,” he said. “My father owns a hardware store in Oklahoma.”

“Wonderful,” he said.

“Gordon, a hardware store in the middle of nowhere is hardly something to get so excited about,” Barbara murmured. Ophelia knew she had pitched her voice exactly at the point where she could pretend it was a whisper while knowing everyone at the table heard her clearly.

“So now you don’t teach and you’ve finished your book contract. What will you do now? Or do you have a tour lined up to sign paperbacks for a bunch of adoring teenage girls?”

They were mercifully interrupted by a waiter, and for once Eliot didn’t interrupt the long list of specials; he did exchange a sympathetic glance with Ophelia. She had kicked out of her shoes when they were seated, which gave her the opportunity now to rub her toes against the outside of his ankle. The waiter withdrew himself with a half-hidden sneer. Barbara’s order had been needlessly complicated, which surprised nobody at that point.

“But I interrupted you,” she continued, falsely indicating she wanted to hear the details of an upcoming book tour. “You were going to tell us how you’re making the world a better place by not contributing to society.”

Eliot reached for her hand, where she was in real danger of ripping her linen napkin in half, giving it a reassuring squeeze that said he’d take over from here.

“She’s too modest to say anything,” he began, ignoring the derisive snort from her mother. “But she’s been approached by General Roberto Flores to write his biography while we’re in San Lorenzo. He is a huge fan of her work, which is why he contacted me for this consultation job. He invited both of us, but Ophelia was the one he really wanted. Lots of people do what I do; there’s nobody else like her.”

“Congratulations, Feelie! That’s quite an honor,” Gordon said, real affection in his voice. “You’ll be wonderful. I look forward to seeing it.”

“And you’ve repaid his kindness by taking a holiday in Monaco,” Barbara observed cattily.

Ophelia, who had in no way been asked to write about anything about Roberto Flores, didn’t turn a hair at Eliot’s story. He could have kissed her.

“I take responsibility for our decision,” she said lightly. “The same as always.”

“It’s quite amusing to hear you talking about taking responsibility for anything in that get up,” her mother snapped. “I’ve seen more dignified outfits on little girls playing dress up in their mother’s wardrobe.”

“I wasn’t aware you were familiar with the concept of little girls or playing dress up,” Ophelia shot back, riled finally into anger. “I don’t recall you ever once being present for one of those days where Nana and I played dress up from her wardrobe.”

“Barbara,” her father said sternly. “This is exactly the conversation we were going to try to avoid.”

“You are correct that I had other things to do with my time than indulge my daughter and my mother in such childish things. But I would have thought being left holding the bag of responsibility from that wedding you cancelled would have had at least some impact on you. And if nothing else, the idea that you look like one of those desperate women who dress as fairies for the Faire in hopes of looking younger than their age and trapping a man should have made you reconsider your clothing choices today.”

“That’s a bit rich coming from a woman who’s been parading around referring to herself as the queen at thirty years’ worth of Faires,” she sighed. “And if I may be so bold as to remind you, again, you were the one who recommended John and then kept pushing him at me just to spite…who? His parents? Me?” She paused to drain the rest of her cocktail. “John, by the way, is also in Oregon, serving out what will likely be a long sentence for coming to my office on my college campus with a loaded gun. And this dress? I designed it.”

“For me,” Eliot put in. He couldn’t help himself. “I think she looks great.”

“Is that true,” Gordon said to Eliot, his face creased in worry. “Do you think he would have shot her?”

Eliot nodded gravely.

“I think he intended to kill her,” he said.

“What nonsense,” Barbara exclaimed. “You never even met the man!”

“I met him twice, as a matter of fact. Neither time ended well for him,” he said. To her credit, Ophelia didn’t appear surprised at that admission. “I might come from nothing, but my dad would be humiliated if he found out I’d ever pulled a gun on a woman. I wasn’t raised that way.”

“Well, surely you don’t—” was as far as she got. Eliot leaned towards her and smiled, letting his teeth show. Ophelia, who was not Catholic, crossed herself.

“Feelie, you were raised Methodist,” her father said quietly.

“Yeah, that’s not going to be enough right now,” she murmured.

“You know,” Eliot said genially, “Phee didn’t want to come here today, and I talked her into it. But I’m going to tell you the same thing I told that waste of life who intended to kill her: you no longer have a claim on her. You gave it up. I convinced her to give you another chance today, and that was the wrong thing to do. If she decides to walk out now, it’s on you.”

Her mother turned her most imperious glance on Eliot, who was in no way fazed. He had looked murderous dictators in the eye; one over-dramatic mother in law wasn’t going to scare him. Frankly, Mrs. Flores, all five feet of her, was more intimidating on her best day than Barbara Mason could ever hope to be. The difference, they both knew, was that Mrs. Flores would eviscerate anyone who spoke to Ophelia in the tone Barbara Mason employed.

“You will not come between me and my only child! You are nobody!” she declared. Ophelia rose from her seat.

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly. “He’s my husband. I chose to marry him because I love him. And it was my choice to make. Just like the choice to leave is mine to make.” She folded her napkin and dropped it on the table. It was not a gesture of surrender. “I wish you safe travels.”

Her father reached for her hand.

“You’ve made some very good choices, Feelie. You always have. I’m proud of you. Can I contact you?”

“You wouldn’t!”

“My email is the same, Dad,” she assured him.

“You take care of her,” he cautioned Eliot. “I’ll hear about it if you don’t.”

“Yes sir,” Eliot nodded. He pulled a wad of Euros out of his wallet and dropped them on the table. “Enjoy your lunch.”

Ophelia left the table without another word; Eliot turned a fierce glare on her mother, who paled in the same way Ophelia did when she was distressed.

“Dr. Mason,” he said curtly. “Safe travels.”

Ophelia was again out the door when he caught up to her.

“Okay,” he said apologetically. “You didn’t undersell. That was much worse than I thought it would be.”

“Unfortunately, it was almost exactly what I expected,” she replied. “And now I’ve cost you lunch at a restaurant you wanted to visit.”

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, brushing his lips against her ear. “I’ve got reservations for Friday lunch. And there are a ton of places here that will be great for lunch.” He shook off his jacket and slung it over one shoulder. “But do you want to do some shopping first?”

“Always,” she said, confused. “But why do you ask?”

“Because you just marched barefoot out of one of the classiest joints in the world,” he laughed. She looked down to see if she, in fact, had left her shoes under the table, and was somewhat surprised to find she had.

“I can’t go back in there to get them,” she lamented.

“No, you can’t,” he agreed solemnly, although this was the funniest thing he’d seen lately. The part with the shoes was funny. Nothing else was, although he was immensely proud of her right now. “Come on. There’s a seafood place down here, and I think some shoe shops in between.”

They walked down the little street until they came upon two shoe stores. Ophelia stood and observed for a moment. One shop was patronized by tall, thin, super-model looking ladies with cheekbones that could cut diamonds. The other seemed popular with American tourists.

“That one,” she decided.

“Any reason?” Eliot had observed the same thing she had, but he enjoyed listening to her logic.

“Any place catering to women wearing bedazzled shirts that say ‘God Bless Texas’ is going to sell an expensive pair of shoes, but not so expensive that you need a loan to buy them. And they’re going to sell what they claim are vintage shoes worn by Grace Kelly’s ladies in waiting,” she explained. “If you want to find a restaurant, you can go ahead and text me when you get a table. I won’t be too long. Dragging you into a shoe store after…all that seems like more than I should legally ask of you.”

He gave her hand a quick squeeze, glad when she leaned against him.

“It’s just one shoe store, Princess, and you’re already dressed. It’s not like you’re going in looking for ideas. And there’s another thing.”

“What’s that, Jones?”

“I owe you some quality shopping time after making you go to lunch today.”

She kissed him on the corner of his mouth and preceded him into the store, which was chic in a touristy way, where she was immediately set upon by a slender young man with a trendy hair-do and a fake French accent who took, in Eliot’s opinion, entirely too much time to measure her feet. He took a seat by the window so he could watch the crowd on the sidewalk while also keeping an eye on Armando. It took a few minutes for her to talk Armando out of the shoes he initially had chosen (comically high heels. She knew her weaknesses as well as her strengths) and into a pair of far lower heels. She was waiting when a woman approached her and began speaking highly excited French.

Eliot came over to interrupt the flood of words before someone misunderstood and got offended.

“Is something wrong?” Ophelia asked him, very concerned. “I’ve never seen her before.”

He turned to the lady, who was waiting somewhat impatiently, and explained he was there to translate, as Ophelia didn’t speak French. She talked for a few moments, periodically gesturing at Ophelia, who had risen from her chair. She finished with an emphatic word that made Eliot smile.

“She wants to know who you’re wearing,” he explained. “I mean, there’s more, but that’s basically it. She loves your dress.”

Ophelia turned a dazzling smile on the stranger before she said “Merci. Madame de la Garzia, a San Lorenzo.” She turned to Eliot. “Is that right?”

“Oui, Princess,” he answered.

“San Lorenzo?!” the woman exclaimed, apparently very surprised.

“Oui,” she answered, pulling up the seamstress’s website on her phone. “Ici.”

The delighted woman copied down the information, kissed Ophelia on both cheeks, then fled out the door, talking enthusiastically into her phone.

“Do you suppose I should tell her?” Ophelia asked as she stared out the door after the incredibly bold but also complimentary woman.

“How did your French accent get so bad?” he asked. He had never turned her attention away from her. “You said like three words, but that’s the worst accent I’ve ever heard.” Of course that wasn’t true; Sophie had done a French play once which still caused him to have nightmares.

Unfortunately, Armando returned with an armful of shoe boxes to interrupt what Eliot thought would have been a hell of a story. Ophelia took a box off the top while fruitlessly trying to explain that she was not in the market for an entire shoe wardrobe. She spoke English. Armando spoke an unholy combination of Italian and French. Eliot found it weirdly coherent.

One stylish but relatively inexpensive pair of shoes later, they continued their promenade to a bistro Eliot thought looked promising. They were seated and ordered cocktails and had studied the menu when Eliot asked the question he wasn’t willing to let go.

“No, really. How did you get such a terrible French accent?”

She grinned and leaned back in her chair; this would be a fun story to tell.

It was late when they returned to the hotel, having visited a gallery or two after their meal. And then a casino, so Eliot could show her how the house always won and how to compensate for it (she learned quickly. They made $500 at craps before she lost her nerve and backed away from the table). And then a stop at a tiny antique store wedged between a cheese shop and a place that sold knock-off cell phones.

He caught her hand as the door closed softly behind them, reeling her back towards him into a careful embrace.

“Wear this again for me?” he requested.

“Any time you like,” she answered, smiling. “I had it made for you, so I’m glad you like it.”

She kissed him on the cheek then went to change out of her day clothes while he pondered what he had learned today. As usual, it was more than either of them could have anticipated. He mixed a drink for himself, then one for her. It was Coke and grenadine with a handful of frozen cherries, which she’d like, especially on a day like today.

She reappeared a few moments later, wearing his pajama top, taking the offered drink as she made her way to the loveseat. He sat in the large chair opposite her, a tumbler of bourbon in hand.

“Do you want to fight about something?” he asked neutrally.

She raised a suspicious glance over the rim of her glass.

“No?”

“You think you don’t,” he offered. “I disagree. I think you do.”

“Elaborate, please,” she requested.

“You didn’t want to leave your school in England, did you? With all your friends.”

“Of course not. But I was 15, and my mother’s opinion has always been ‘just because I don’t want her doesn’t mean you can have her.’ There wasn’t a chance they would have let me stay.”

“You didn’t want to marry John, either, did you.”

“God no. He was cute, until you took about 10 minutes to get to know him.”

“You didn’t want to quit your job or come to San Lorenzo for an indefinite amount of time, did you.”

Her gaze turned shifty at that.

“I know you said you retired because it was my idea,” he continued. “But you didn’t really want to retire, did you?”

“Well, no,” she admitted. “But I couldn’t come up with a compelling reason to not retire, either.”

“You could have said that,” he pointed out gently. “You don’t have to go along with things because they’re my idea.”

She didn’t have a ready response.

“But you didn’t because in your experience it doesn’t do any good to fight, does it?”

“It never has, no.”

“Phee,” he sighed.

“I didn’t want to not go to San Lorenzo,” she said, somewhat defensively. She also knew from experience it took two people to fight. “And it’s been wonderful. I love it.”

“But?”

“But I also love our house, and we were barely in it six months,” she said. She fished a cherry out of her drink, breaking eye contact with him. This, he realized, was the way she fought: she avoided it. He almost couldn’t fathom the concept.

He abandoned his drink and his chair to join her on the loveseat. She scooted into a more comfortable position and leaned over to put her head on his shoulder while he put his arm around her.

“So this is my fault?”

“Yes, Eliot,” she teased. “You are solely to blame for our presence in this spectacular hotel room on the Mediterranean coast, and our extended presence in San Lorenzo, which is also a lovely country where we have an amazing place to stay and friends who are at least more tolerable than my family. I hope next time you consider the consequences of your actions.”

“Do you have any solutions?” he asked, tracing an imaginary pattern on her bare knee. “Because it’s probably not a good idea to go on like this. Don’t get me wrong: I like not fighting, but I don’t like the way we’re not doing it. And I don’t want you to keep going along with things because it’s easy or you think it’s what I want.”

To her credit, she didn’t pretend to misunderstand just to launch an actual fight; he suspected she wasn’t feeling up to it after lunch. In fact, for a long while she didn’t say anything.

“Phee?”

“I’m trying to find a way to say that I told you we could skip lunch with my parents because it would be awful without it coming out containing the actual words ‘I told you so’. But I did, and I was right, even though your reasons for wanting to go were…”

“Good?” He was hopeful.

“Nope,” she answered. “But they were logical. Super wrong, but logical. And even if you didn’t plan to go to San Lorenzo as soon as I left work, it felt like both those things came up at the same time, and if I didn’t do one, both of them would fall apart. Which, I know that’s not the way you meant it, but that’s still how it sounded.” She sipped idly at her drink before going on. “And it’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but you planned this whole trip kinda without me. Which was weird, because I thought we had fun planning our house. Together.”

“You really like the house?”

“I really do.”

“And you really hate to argue with someone you love, even when I deserve it.”

“I do that too.”

“And pointing out that I put you in an impossible position falls into your definition of an argument.”

“It also seems remarkably ungrateful.”

Oh.

He moved suddenly, pulling her into his lap, one finger under her chin coaxing her to look up at him.

“Never think that what I want from you is gratitude, Phee. It’s not.”

“They do not love who do not show their love,” she replied, but kindly.

“Not one of your sins,” he assured her. “And Shakespeare can butt out of this one. I will promise to cut you in on the planning more if you will swear that telling me I’m leaving you out doesn’t count as starting a fight, okay?”

“Are you sure?”

“I feel like you and Amalia could have planned d-day so that there were fewer casualties and also a lunch break. And we did have fun planning our house. I shouldn’t have kept you out of this.”

“Are you sure that it’s not starting a fight,” she clarified. Planning was one of her favorite things.

“Positive,” he said.

She curled her fingers into his hair and kissed him for a long time.

“In that case,” she said, “if you have plans to go to bed tonight, I would really like to be included in those.”

He stood up with her in his arms.

“There’s something to be said for not planning, too,” he grinned. “Can I interest you in that?”

“I’m always here for your ideas,” she said.

Extremely early the next morning, he asked the other question that had been bugging him. It was a question he didn’t ask lightly, but also a question he didn’t know how she’d answer. The answer, in this case, could be pretty important.

“Do you want me to tell General Flores no?” he asked quietly. “I can.”

“See what I mean?” she asked.

“Phee.”

“Eliot, that’s a business decision and I’m not in the business.”

“What business, exactly?”

“The business of training military people,” she sighed. “Which, despite the very entertaining stories Roberto told us at dinner the first time, is what I assume you’re doing.”

He leaned back against the headboard with his hands behind his head, barely moving to look down at her. She hadn’t mentioned or asked about anything the general had said. At first, he was left with a sinking feeling that she knew and was trying to collect her thoughts. Eventually, he let himself think she had forgotten or ignored it or didn’t want to know. Because it made him feel better.

“Or am I wrong, Eduardo?”

Yeah. She knew.

“It’s just some training exercises,” he said. “With Tomas and his detail. We’ll probably do a couple, over a month or two. We don’t have the final plans in place yet.” He waited to see if she had a response. “You don’t want to help with that, do you?”

He took her snort to mean no, she did not, and he should really know better than to ask a question like that. The silence stretched out for a while before he dared to break it again.

“You want to hear about Eduardo?” he finally asked.

She shifted to prop herself up on one elbow, adjusting the sheet before it slipped to her waist. Some unoccupied corner of his mind wished she had played that card.

“Here’s the thing, Eliot. I don’t know what you’ve done, but you’ve given me a lot of clues that while a lot of it wasn’t pleasant or even legal, at least in your mind, you’ve acted as one of the good guys.” She finally looked directly at him. “You don’t need my thoughts on whether or not that’s true. But if you tell me about Eduardo, at some point you’re gonna want to know what I think of him, and in the interest of not starting a fight, I’ll be compelled to tell you. And that, honestly, is probably going to start a fight.”

He blew out a long sigh.

“And if it’s absolutely all the same to you,” she continued, “I’d rather not bring a third person into this marriage. I’m sure you realize by now one of my many, many charms is my incredible ability to ignore things that are even remotely unpleasant, so Eduardo can stay happily in the jungle with the rest of his merry men, and we need never discuss him again. Or his relative morality.”

“You realize this is incredibly unhealthy, right? Like, most doctors would tell you this is a problem.”

“How many countries is…Eduardo wanted in?” she asked, picking at the tiniest of knots in the silk sheet. “Feel free to round.”

“Um, up? Or down?”

She moved closer to him, then, walking her fingers up his chest before she wrapped them around his neck. He allowed himself to be pulled closer, because the sun was just beginning to creep over the horizon while waves crashed below them and they were both awake and this was, after all, their honeymoon and both he and Eduardo were just human and while her ignoring big parts of his life was not likely to go as well as either of them hoped, it wasn’t an immediate threat to her either. And if there was no threat, there was no need to not take full advantage of this romantic beach setting in this romantic part of the world, and her glass from last night was still sitting on the nightstand…

“Yeah,” she whispered against his lips. “That’s not unhealthy at all.”

Later, on the beach, over a breakfast of croissants and mimosas, he brought it up again. She was pretending to read while watching for celebrities through a pair of face-obscuring but very trendy sunglasses. He suspected she was also pretending he was a celebrity, a thing she did fairly often over here, but that he agreed was part of her charm.

“You’re sure you don’t want to know? Because I’ll tell you if you do. The parts that aren’t classified, I mean.”

“Would you feel better if I said that I don’t want to know, but I retain the right to ask at a later date?”

He blinked at her in confusion because, yes, that was what he wanted. That was so precisely what he wanted, he wondered again if she was psychic. But probably not, because if she spent any real time reading what was in his head, she definitely wouldn’t have married him, which would have precluded this entire conversation. He drank some more of his bloody mary to try to clear his head.

“Oh. Okay,” she said with dawning realization. “You also want to set some parameters about the times at which I can ask? Like, if someone send a threatening message nursing an obvious grudge I can ask, but I surrender the right to ask if circumstances evolve so that we’re suddenly having to escape from that person and their grudge?”

“What is my life like in your head?” he asked, his question a mixture of amusement and disbelief.

“Depends on which way you needed to round, Jones,” she answered. “Is that Sarah Ferguson?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, not really caring if it was Sarah Ferguson or not. But it probably wasn’t. Probably. “Get a picture if you want. Sophie would know.”

His answer captured her complete attention. In an instant, whether or not the redhead frolicking around nearly topless was former royalty dropped completely out of her mind.

“Is that what you’re worried about?” she asked, peering at him over the top of her glasses.

“What? Sophie? No,” he said. Unconvincingly.

“You are!” She exclaimed, and she sounded a lot more excited about that than Eliot was comfortable hearing. “You want to tell me because Sophie knows and you’re afraid she’ll tell me!”

“That’s…That’s not…,” he started.

“The alternative is that you’re afraid someday something will happen and Sophie will have some kind of context that I don’t and I’ll get mad or get jealous and cause some kind of scene, probably when we’re fleeing someone with a grudge.” She waited approximately three seconds. “Which one is it?”

“This is why you write novels, isn’t it?” Eliot asked. “Because you just said a lot of words which would make a pretty good plot.”

“There’s your third alternative, I guess,” she mused. “You’re afraid I’ll write you into one of my books?”

“You based a whole series on your grandmother,” he pointed out. “So it’s not like you’ve never based characters on real people. And don’t say I’m not at least as interesting as your grandmother. I totally am. We both know it.”

“And you’re afraid this would attract the attention of someone who perceives that you’ve wronged them in the past, and give away your current location. You’ve got to give me more credit than that, Jones. I would at the very least put you in another time period. You disappoint me.”

He signaled the bartender over, requesting another mimosa for her and another bloody Mary for him because whatever his life was like in her head, she had nailed most of his fears even being three drinks and half a croissant in. And rather than make her mad, which he hadn’t been trying to do, he disappointed her again.

“I mean…,” he started, once the waiter could no longer hear them. Probably. But it’s not like waiters and bartenders didn’t hear weirder stuff here every day. “Disappointed?”

“I am,” she said earnestly. “I’m disappointed you think I would put you in a novel without your permission, even without General Flores and Eduardo and whatever else there is. I’m disappointed you think I have that little respect for you or our friends or your work.”

Which made him genuinely feel like an ass. He had ignored her writing career as if it hadn’t existed for nearly a year of their relationship, and despite atoning for that and being a fan of her writing, he had carelessly intimated he thought she would use their lives for fodder. It was an accusation he would find many writers feared, not just his sweet and easily hurt wife who actually never would do such a thing. This was what he got, he supposed, for continuing to try to prod her into an argument she didn’t want to have.

“I don’t think you’d do that, Princess. I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.”

“So with all that in mind,” she said, “are you sure it’s all that important that I know about Eduardo? Think about this instead: would telling me all of Eduardo’s adventures help me see you as a more complete person, or would you just be shifting part of that burden onto me so you would feel better about yourself as a person?”

A silence fell between them as the waiter returned. Which was good, because Eliot had to try to get Nate’s voice asking the same question out of his head.

She didn’t wait for the waiter to depart again before starting in on her next line of questions, nor did she wait for his answer.

“So, this project you’re working on with General Flores and Tomas,” she began.

“Roberto.”

“Eduardo?”

“Go on,” he said, tacitly conceding defeat.

“I feel certain that at some point you’re going to break it to me that while you’re gone, you’ve made some sort of arrangement for me,” she said confidently. “And I don’t know if we’ve had this conversation, but I feel like we haven’t. And it’s important. To me, anyway.”

“Then it’s important to me,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I hate to be managed,” she said. “A lot. An awful lot. I’d say it feels minimizing, but then I sound like my students. But it does make me feel like my opinion is not worth asking. Or hearing.”

“You…you aren’t wrong,” he admitted. “I had asked—”

“I suspected you would,” she interrupted. “And I would prefer not to. I’ve asked Amalia if she’d like to come stay with Devil and me while we’re gone, and she said yes.”

“Who would be in charge in that scenario, Phee? You or Amalia or Devil?” he asked, knowing the answer was Devil. “That’s the least safe thing I’ve ever heard!”

“What kind of threat do you think we’re going to have in San Lorenzo, Eliot? Sunburn? Bad shellfish?”

Alcohol poisoning, he thought.

“But—”

“Who do you think is likely to show up at the door when you’re gone that wouldn’t also show up when you’re there?” she insisted. “Don’t actually answer that. But we’ve been here for months and there hasn’t been a problem. And Amalia’s dad is the Minister of Defense. Who in their right mind is going to come after her?”

“It’s not people in their right minds that worry me, Phee,” he protested. “Can’t you and Amalia just go stay with the General? And Devil too. Devil would love it. General Flores would love it. Even Mrs. Flores would love it.”

“And give up the house and the cabin and the lagoon?!” He wasn’t fooled; she would move herself, Devil, and Amalia into the cabin for the duration of his absence.

“You’d prefer being in the middle of the woods alone with your only retreat being the ocean?”

“Retreat?” she looked over her glasses at him again.

“Figure of speech?”

“You were going to have to round up, weren’t you?”

“All I wanted to do was,” he stopped to fortify himself with a drink that wasn’t nearly strong enough, “was put a couple of guys around the house. You wouldn’t even see them.”

“How many is a couple?” she asked. “I feel certain you don’t mean two. And how am I going to explain that to Devil?”

“The same way you explain everything to Devil,” he replied, exasperated with both the conversation and the drink. “With a handful of treats.” It was an incautiously considered statement. She wasn’t generally vindictive, but he could feel yesterday’s disastrous lunch lurking, unacknowledged, between them, which sat poorly beside today’s hurt feelings.

She pulled off her sunglasses and chewed pensively on the earpiece for a moment, considering her options, while he considered that her hand at this point was entirely comprised of wild cards, any one of which would be a strategic play that he entirely deserved. The irony of having been the person who dealt her all of these cards didn’t elude him, which was even more infuriating because he was completely sure she knew that too.

“Here’s what I propose,” she offered. “I want Amalia to come stay at our place. You can arrange for some of General Flores’ troops as guards, but no more than three, and only at night.”

“Do you also want a boat?” As the primary planner of missions, he couldn’t help but be a little surly, although she knew he wouldn’t characterize his current mood as such. She also knew he wouldn’t dare argue with something that at least pretended to be a compromise. Not today, anyway. She was fairly certain if she demanded he go catch them some lunch, in a flash he’d be out beyond the sand bar with a spear in his teeth.

“I don’t have time to learn to read a chart,” she said dismissively. “And I don’t want to plant the idea in Devil’s head. In return, I promise we will not go out to dinner, unless it’s to eat with Roberto and Marie at their home, and if it’s too late when we get done, we’ll stay there for the night. We’ll go out for lunch and shopping during the day, but we’ll stay in and cook at night. In the house, not the cabin, because I know you’re going to insist.”

She had devised a plan that, while he didn’t love it, he couldn’t fault either. He got mostly what he wanted, she got mostly what she wanted, and General Flores would dispatch guards to the house as he saw fit no matter what any of them wanted. Still, the tactician in him couldn’t just agree with her.

“Would you be willing to take a guard shopping?”

“Jones, San Lorenzo is 12 miles long, and Amalia is the General’s oldest daughter. I’m pretty sure we could walk around naked and nobody would get near us.”

She wasn’t wrong. Well, she was, but this was where Eliot started to get confused and had to abandon that line of thought completely before the whole conversation went off the rails.

“You win, Princess,” he said with a sigh. “That’s what we’ll do.”

“Why do I win?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question. It wasn’t really rhetorical, either, which meant he had to say something.

“Because it’s not a bad plan,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s not exactly what I’d do, but it’s pretty close, and I know you two are smart enough to run for the palace if something happens.”

“Three,” she corrected.

“Two, because Devil’s not going to speak to you for a week when he finds out he could have stayed with General Flores and you said no.”

She studied him for a minute without speaking.

“You’re disappointed because I came up with something that wasn’t completely impractical,” she said quietly. Her tone was entirely different now, sober instead of celebratory. “Why is that, Eliot?”

When he didn’t answer, she put her drink to the side of her chair, then turned to his, carelessly stepping across him before sitting with her knees on either side of his hips, catching his face in her hands and kissing him, the taste of champagne and sand on her lips. Monaco didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“I’m not…,” he started to argue. He reached up for her hands, turning his head to kiss one of her palms. “I am, a little. Not because you didn’t come up with a plan that’s fine, but because you didn’t need me to do it for you. I know you’re not stupid, but when it comes to making sure nothing happens to you, I kinda want to be in charge of that.”

“I didn’t marry you for your bodyguard capabilities,” she said. “And I told you I hate to be managed, even when you think your reasons are good. I can appreciate this is a thing you’re really good at, but I lived alone for a long time. I know how to not make myself a target.”

“You married me for my looks, didn’t you?” he asked, wrapping his arms around her when she grinned.

“I don’t know how many times I need to tell you that I married you for your body,” she whispered back. “Everyone knows that.”

“I didn’t really mean I thought you’d put me in a book,” he offered. “I know you said you don’t do that. I shouldn’t have said it.”

“This is why I didn’t want to have a fight last night,” she murmured. “Because it starts as a fight about not really wanting to retire and ends as a fight about whether or not I’d willingly expose your whole life in print.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have tried so hard to convince you to marry a criminal.” And in many cases, a war criminal, he finished silently.

“Maybe you should assume that I know how to assess risks too, and I thought the benefits were worth more.”

“You’re trying as hard as you can to redeem me as a hero, Ophelia. I love you for thinking I’m worth saving.”

She kissed him. Monaco yawned; they were both dressed and married to each other. What on earth was the use of that?

“You want to have lunch here?”

She cast a fond glance back at the hotel.

“You’re thinking of that avocado crab tower thing again, aren’t you?”

“God, yes,” she answered rapturously. “How did you know?”

“Because the only other time I’ve seen you look like that is when I’m cooking dessert.”

“In those cases, it’s never the dessert I’m thinking about.”

He kissed her on the chin.

“Keep telling yourself that, Princess. Keep telling yourself that.”

Over dinner that night at an interesting little bistro that seemed to feature an unanticipated floor show (the head waiter and the hostess were in the final battle of what must have been a whale of a relationship), Eliot surprised her again.

“I got us tickets to a dinner show for our last night,” he said. He took a moment while what sounded like every salad plate in the place crashed to the tile floor of the kitchen. “A real one, I mean. Not the one we’re all having together right now.”

“I’d say we should ask for the check and leave,” she said. “But I’m not sure we would get one, and I’m invested in this fight now.”

“Agreed,” he said. “Julian sounds like a real asshole.”

“Totally his fault. What dinner show?” she asked. A wine glass flew across the room and slammed into a wall. Fortunately for the people sitting near the crash site, the flower arrangement on the wall caught the shrapnel.

He handed her a set of tickets.

“King George’s New Year’s at the Royale,” she read. “Sounds fancy!”

“It’s a little like the…the knight thing you told me about,” he said. “But a lot better food and the whole thing is about New Year’s Eve in 1937, just before the war. So there’s, like, a 30s kind of show during dinner, then there’s a whole cast of people playing real people from that time. Which sounded like the kind of thing you’d like.” He waited for her enthusiastic nod. “Plus, since it’s very formal and you didn’t pack anything formal, that old doorman who likes you so much recommended a spa and dress place. You pick a dress and they can alter it to fit you, then you can give it back or buy it or whatever.”

If anyone ever tried to kidnap her, he thought, all they’d need in the windowless van was a rack of pretty clothing.

“I have no idea what you just said, Princess,” he admitted. “Sound good?”

“Sounds great!” she enthused. “But we may have to come back here for lunch if Julian and Raffaella haven’t worked this out by the time we leave.”

“You want me to go break this up?” he asked, hoping a little that she did.

“Depends on the state in which our food arrives,” she said. “If it’s cold or super wrong, you can go charging back there, ok?”

He looked more excited than she’d seem him in a while, but honestly nothing beat his enthusiastic whoop when the fight suddenly became a knife-throwing act around their table and he finally got to join in the mayhem.

They were lingering over breakfast on the balcony when the car service sent word they were waiting down front whenever she was ready. She threw several of her own makeup items and a small jewelry box into her bag before turning and running straight into Eliot.

“What color were you thinking?” he asked. “For your dress, I mean.”

She paused for a penetrating glance to see if he was joking around about something, then decided he wasn’t.

“I haven’t decided,” she said truthfully. “What color would you like?”

“Pink,” he answered rapidly. Probably too rapidly to continue seeming cool. “If you brought that lipstick. You…I mean, you know, the pink one?”

She smiled and bit her lip, just a little.

“I did,” she whispered. “Pink it is. I’ll see you here? Before we go?”

“I’ll be here, Princess. Have a good day.”

She was gone with a fast kiss, out the door before he could say anything else. She rarely wore pink, which was something of a let-down for Eliot, because he liked to see her in it. And he especially liked the pink lipstick she wore on those occasions. It was…wild something? Something wild? He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t matter anyway because the name that had planted itself permanently in his mind was Wild Horses, because that was the only power on earth that could convince him to say no when she wore it. He couldn’t even explain it; his reaction was completely irrational. He couldn’t wait to see her tonight.