I shouldn’t be here. I’m interrupting our task but I can’t stand that she’s afraid or that the asshole Fouquet has laid his hands on her.
“Company?” she repeats in an uncertain tone. “I don’t know. I really shouldn’t.” Her soft lips have turned down and worry has crept into her eyes.
And what eyes. They are different colored—one deep brown and one brilliant green. With her pale perfect skin and her unique eyes, she’s stunning to look at. It takes my breath away just to meet her gaze.
“Just for an hour? For a poor, lonely fellow American?” I give her my most winning smile.
Her own is shy, and some of the fear goes away. I’m glad to see that. She glances around weighing safety against her need to escape, her need for company. I worry she’s going to decline, but she looks at me again, then nods. “Got a place in mind?”
I gesture at the café I just came out of. It’s a French-style place but it serves food as well as coffee. As a bonus for Ava, the waiters are bilingual. “This one’s nice and not too noisy.”
She nods and ducks her head, stepping forward to go inside. I notice her grip on her bag is white-knuckled and tight. I move ahead to open the door for her, and she passes me as we go inside.
We grab a table at the back of the place, where it’s quieter. I gesture for one of the waiters to come over and take our order.
She wilts into the chair beside me and pulls the purse into her lap. “Thanks. So you’re American, huh?” She tilts her pretty head and the sun shines down on her makeup-covered bruise. She’s done a good job covering it up but it’s still visible. Under the table my hand clenches into a fist. At some point I’m going to take Fouquet into a private room and beat him until his teeth are falling out and he’s crying for his mother. “What are you doing here in Lima?”
“Visiting family,” I lie. “You?”
She blinks, as if taken aback. Maybe she doesn’t have a lie prepared. “Um, vacation.” Her hands clutch her purse. “Where are you from? Midwest?”
“Arizona.” Does it matter that she knows the truth of where I grew up? It’s not where I live now and I haven’t been back to that town since I left for the army at age eighteen.
“I’m from Ohio. A—I mean, Lucy Wessex.” She holds out her hand, the other clutched to her bag.
“Rafael Mendoza.” I always use my real name. There are those who believe aliases are necessary in this business, but a great deal of my success rests upon the fear that my name raises in the stomachs of my opponents. That fear often buys me precious seconds of hesitation. But it’s clear she’s never heard of me. And why would she? Before she fell into Duval’s grip, she was a model—although none of our research revealed any print or digital ads, unlike that of her roommate, Rose, who walks the runways in Paris, Milan, and New York.
I can’t figure out why anyone would find Ava’s creamy beauty lacking. Maybe Ava’s lush rack and bubble butt prevent her from being the clothes hanger that fashion demands. Whatever the case may be, Ava is starring in all my fantasies now. It’s Ava’s hot ass that I’m palming as I drill into her and it’s her dark hair that I have clenched in my hand as I pillage her body.
“Coffee?” I raise my hand to get the attention of a waiter again but it’s unnecessary.
A dark-haired, skinny man-child appears at her elbow and bends low because he’s been admiring what I can’t stop thinking about. “What would the lady like to drink?”
“Coffee is fine.” She gives him a brief flick of a smile.
“Nothing else?” he queries.
“You should eat,” I say gruffly. She hasn’t eaten much over the last two days. Fouquet is responsible for bringing her things, and other than the purse and one small bag of food, she’s been largely without.
“I’m not hungry,” she says, but an unladylike rumble betrays her.
“We’ll have a charcuterie plate,” I order. I hold up my hands about two feet apart. “A big one. You guys have that, right?”
The waiter scuttles with the order, leaving Ava alone with me.
She bites her plump lip and gives me a hesitant look. “Thanks for the food, but you shouldn’t have done that.”
Is she worried about the money? Duval probably hasn’t given her a dime. “I would’ve ordered it anyway. The serving portions here wouldn’t keep a bird alive.”
She smiles, a quick twist of her lips, as if she knows that there’s nothing good about her current circumstances but still can’t keep her humor to herself. Every part of my body responds to hers so if she smiles, then I’m smiling, too, even though she’s neck deep in Duval’s plans to auction off information that could put an entire country at his disposal and I’m here to steal that information.
“You look bigger than a bird.”
I suppress the instinct to flex but it’s an effort. She speaks and I want to know how high I should jump and whom I should pound on the way down to make her life easier.
“Hence the big board of food.”