Chapter 41: Night Before Paris

The hotel on the rue de Turenne had eleven rooms, and no Rhodes owned any of them.

I had booked it from the airplane with the Winslow trust card, under my grandmother's name.

The detective had kept the hard drive for the French police, and she had flown to Paris on an earlier plane to meet them.

In my bag I carried the prosecutor's letter and one copy of the Saturday recording.

Nathaniel stood at the window of our room with his tie off, looking down at the wet street.

The Council would meet on Thursday, the first.

It was Tuesday night, and I could not sit down.

"Ask me," he said, without turning.

"Ask you what?"

"What you've been wanting to ask since the airport."

I put the bag on the chair.

"What did it cost you?" I said. "The company. Eleven brands, your chair, your shares."

"Claire."

"I've been counting it for days, and you haven't once said the number out loud."

"What would you like me to say?"

"If your father offers it all back tomorrow, will you take it?"

He did not answer right away.

It was a short silence, and it was the worst one of my life.

"I don't know what he'll offer," he said.

"That isn't no."

"It isn't yes either."

"I know," I said, and my voice came out thinner than I wanted. "That's the part I can't stand."

He crossed the room in four strides.

"Look at me," Nathaniel said.

"I am."

"I married you with nothing in my name. I would do it again in this hotel, tonight, if the priest were downstairs."

"You haven't been tested."

"Then test me."

I pulled him down by the front of his shirt and kissed him hard.

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