Chapter 4: Thirty Days, Three Rules

We had one hour and four suitcases, and the street was full of cameras.

Preston stood in my kitchen with Poppy's fox in his hand, because she had asked him to hold it and he hadn't put it down.

"I have a villa up the hill," he said. "Walled garden, one gate, a guard at it. The hotel team rented it for the opening."

"No."

"There are no empty rooms in this town tonight that the press won't know about by dinner."

"No."

"Hannah. Where will you take her?"

I had no answer, and he knew it, and he had the decency not to say so.

I looked at Bridget.

She was kneeling beside Max with a suitcase half zipped, and her phone was face down on the floor beside her knee.

"Bridge?"

"I think we should go." She didn't look up. "Max is scared. Those people on the street know his name now."

"You hate Preston."

"I don't know Preston. I hate his friend." She finally lifted her eyes. "You promised me an airport. I'm picking this one."

My throat tightened.

She was right.

She had never once asked me for anything, and she was asking now.

"Fine," I said. "But on my terms."

Preston set the fox on the counter.

"Name them."

I pulled the nearest pad of drawing paper over and wrote on it, in black marker, while he watched.

One: no cameras anywhere near Poppy. Not a photographer, not a phone, not a staff member's cousin.

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