by Cassia Leo
Alex came out of the bathroom, a towel slung low around his hips. Muscle packed solidly over his lean body, from his broad shoulders down to the deep vee that pointed under the towel.
Yep, that’s right. She hit that. Georgie smiled.
He turned her and zipped her dress up over her butt, caressing her ass as he did. “So, what’s your phone number?”
Georgie picked his shirt up off the bed and threw it to him, then snagged her purse off the nightstand. “Let’s not screw this up with empty promises.”
“I want to call you,” Alex said, resting his arm on the wall beside her. He had taken the band out of his hair, and it swung past his shoulders.
“No, you don’t,” she said.
“Come on. What’s your phone number?”
“I’ll see you around.” She ducked under his arm and walked out of the bedroom.
He shook his undershirt out of his dress shirt and followed her, holding all the white fabric in one fist. “I’m serious. I’d like to call you, just to talk, if nothing else. We could meet somewhere.”
“Look, this was a wedding fuck. I’m a bridesmaid, for all purposes. You’re essentially a groomsman. It’s expected that you’ll put out.”
“I put out?” Alex began to laugh that ringing, singer’s laugh.
“Yes, you did, and pretty damn well, I’ll admit. And now it’s over.”
“I want to see you again,” he said, his tone firm. Obviously, his statement usually had some sort of authority behind it.
But not with her.
“Stop it. You live in Europe—”
“I never said that.”
“—or wherever. I live in BFE, USA. Let’s not fuck this up with sentimental shit.” She slipped her shoes on her feet and stood three inches taller, closer to his shoulder. He looked a little shocked. She cradled his chiseled jaw in her hand, a gesture of affection. “It was lovely fucking you. Now I’m leaving.”
Georgie opened the door to the hallway, pushed him back inside with one finger in his chest before he could protest again, and shut the door in his surprised face.
GUNSHOTS
Georgie
Georgie made it back to the chattering reception in time for one last champagne toast to the bride and groom, standing among their beautiful friends and smiling at each other, and then people began to file through the lobby for the cars. The champagne was sweet in her dry mouth after the mad scruffing, and she was pleasantly sore between her legs. Aggressive men were her favorite.
The crowd rustled beside her as something small pushed through the people, Lizzy popped out from between two ladies in jewel-toned cocktail dresses. She announced, “Evidently, we’re going to a restaurant for supper before we head to the planes. Your friend will be there, too. Also, we’re riding home on The Dom’s private plane.”
“Oh, nifty.” There was no way Georgie would be able to dodge Wulfram von Hannover on a tiny, little private plane. She should rehearse an apology and explanation.
“The SUVs will be here to pick us up in a second,” Lizzy said, still practically hopping.
“Okay.” Look, I know that I didn’t tell you who I was, but I didn’t know you were related to Flicka, and you didn’t tell me your name, either, Georgie planned.
Their group was among the last to leave, and Georgie glanced over at Flicka’s group. Alex stood with them, his long hair brushed and shining, and he smiled when he caught her eye. He lifted a finger to Flicka and Pierre, a wait-a-minute gesture, and started walking toward her.
Georgie didn’t have to dodge Alex. There shouldn’t be anything weird between them, and it wasn’t like they were ever going to see each other again. She smiled at him as he ducked through the crowd toward her, his dark eyes intent on her.
The crowd ahead of her began walking, and Georgie moved with the crowd.
A bunch of security men in black flowed around Flicka’s group like a black fog, and then the whole group of them began moving toward the lobby doors and to the sidewalk outside.
As Alex approached her, her crowd jostled her toward the sunshine streaming in from the sidewalk outside. Rae and Wulfram von Hannover walked right in front of them, and their security men in black suits surrounded Georgie, too.
Theo the Medium Guy—now known in Georgie’s head as Radiant Sun God Dude since he had shaved that awful bristle off his face—had appeared and held Lizzy’s hand.
Great, they were all coupled off, too. Georgie was the only one with any sense left on the planet.
Alex continued swimming through the crowd as they broke out of the lobby into the afternoon sunshine. The trees had already leafed out, spreading patches of dark shade over the sidewalk, but the flowers were still blooming from every window box and planter along the street.
Georgie watched Alex as he smiled at her, his head sticking out of the crowd, and he had almost reached her when someone else grabbed Georgie’s arm from behind and yanked her back. Her purse slapped the back of her leg.
Sound smashed her ears, and Georgie recognized gunshots.
The crowd ducked and fell around her, the black-suited security guys falling on their charges, other people ducking and running.
More bangs cracked the air around her.
Georgie reached for Lizzy but grasped air and was being dragged backward.
A man in a black suit threw her up against the wall and demanded, “Georgiana Oelrichs?”
“No,” she lied. “No!”
“Yes. Madame von Hannover called you Georgiana Oelrichs.” His eyes narrowed, and he crammed his forearm up and under her chin. His accent became more guttural, more Russian, as he said, “We have been looking for you for a very long time.”
A hand appeared on the Russian’s shoulder.
Alex loomed above the man’s head.
Alex yanked the Russian away from Georgie. He wheeled the man around by his shoulder and shook him. “What the hell are you doing!”
She staggered forward when his arm stopped crushing her throat and coughed.
Alex drew back his fist to punch but the Russian twirled, yanking himself out of Alex’s grip, and ran into the panicking crowd around them.
Georgie straightened, and the wall exploded right next to her.
The SUVs on the street roared and jumped forward, leaving them there.
Alex grabbed Georgie and crouched over her, pulling her inside the hotel, as more gunshots slammed into the facade on the hotel and sprayed sharp marble chips around them.
She ran, trying not to let Alex shield her but he held her under him as they sprinted the few steps inside.
Men in black suits ran in after them and took up defensive positions inside the hotel, aiming guns out the doors.
Alex held her hand and dragged her toward the stairs. They ran up six flights, and Georgie thanked Jesus and Mary that she ran cross-country every day. Alex shoved his keycard in a door that led out of the stairwell and took her to his room.
Georgie was breathing hard, partly from panic but some from sprinting up six flights of stairs, when Alex slammed the door behind them. She clutched her purse to her chest like a shield.
She yelled, “You’re not even winded!”
“Are you all right?” He locked the doors and came over to her.
“I’m fine. Why aren’t you winded!” She was focusing on the wrong things and her whole body quaked.
“Breath control. Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He brushed marble chips and dust out of her hair.
“I’m fine, I think. Where’s Lizzy, and Rae, and oh my God, where’s Flicka?” Georgie leaned against the wall, her heart flopping in her chest like a fish on the beach. “I can’t believe he grabbed me, here, in public.”
Alex still flexed his fists. “I can’t believe, in this day and age, that someone would take advantage of a crisis situation to try something like that.”
Georgie could believe it. She rubbed her throat where the skin felt burned. “I knew this would happen someday.
&n
bsp; “This isn’t the nineteen-sixties when men chased secretaries around the desk. Why on God’s Earth would he do that?”
“I—what?” Georgie blinked hard, as if clearing her sight would help her understand.
“Grabbing you like that. Molesting you in public. We should call the police. He should be arrested for sexual assault.”
Alex had the motive exactly wrong, but the last thing Georgie needed was her old name associated with the new name on her passport. “I just want to know if Flicka, Rae, and Lizzy are all right.”
Alex held his long hair back from his face. “I should go after him. I should beat the shit out of him for touching you, for grabbing any woman like that, but especially you.”
“It’s okay, Alex.” Her hands weren’t shaking as much. “I just want to go back to the US. I don’t want to have to go to the police station and give a statement or come back here for any reason. I just want to go home.”
“I’ll have him tracked down. I’ll make sure he never bothers you or any other woman, ever again.”
“Don’t.” They would go after Alex, too, and then the circles of violence would spread. “It’s over. I’m okay.”
He stepped closer, raising his fingers toward her shoulder, but he stopped with his hand in the air. “Can I touch you?”
At least he knew how to act around an assault victim, even if he had entirely misunderstood the nature of what had happened, and that was just fine with her.
She reached up and took his warm hand. The calloused ridges on his fingertips rubbed her fingers. “I really am okay.”
Alex wrapped his arms around her. “I’ll make sure you’re safe. I’ll protect you.”
She gently detangled herself from his long limbs. Even though an offer of safety seemed terribly attractive, he couldn’t promise that. “We have to make sure that everyone is all right.”
“We should check in,” Alex said, pulling his cell phone from his pants pocket. “Do you have Wulfram’s security contact?”
“Lizzy and I just got here a few hours ago. We didn’t even change the SIM cards in our phones.” She jiggled her purse, indicating her phone.
Alex held his phone to his ear. “Quentin is Pierre’s Head of Security. I’ll check in with him, and we can get Wulfram’s contact numbers. After we check in with Big Brother’s security, we’ll stay in my room until we know what our next move is.”
Georgie leaned on the wall behind her. Her legs still felt like rubber bands were wound between her bones. “Big Brother?”
“That’s what Flicka used to call her brother, Wulfram. He had people watching her from the shadows all through school. She became adept at escaping his security, but they often found her within minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had earned that white wedding dress, considering how many men with guns surrounded her at all times.”
“God, I hope they’re okay,” Georgie said, clutching her hands in front of her.
“Bon jour, Quentin?” He continued in French, and Georgie couldn’t follow the rest of what he said. Really regretting taking Spanish and Mandarin right now.
Alex hung up. “Flicka and Pierre are unharmed and en route to their plane. Wulfram’s head of security is with him and they are fine, so Luca Wyss is in charge here. I have his phone number. Would you like to use my phone?”
“Yes. Please.”
Alex thumbed the screen of his phone and handed it to Georgie. It rang twice before a man’s bass voice said, “Say Luca Wyss.”
“I only speak English.”
“I speak English.”
Georgie said, “This is Georgie Johnson, Georgiana Johnson. I’m here with Alexandre—” She looked up at him.
“Grimaldi,” Alex said.
“Grimaldi, and we’re fine. We’re in his room, upstairs.”
“If you are being held against your will, say a number between one and five.”
“No! I mean, six! No, I’m fine. We’re fine. Is everyone else all right?”
“We do not provide operational information during an attack.”
“Please! Please tell me if they’re all right!” she begged. Georgie’s legs started to buckle, and Alex took her arm and led her to the couch.
Luca Wyss whispered, “At this time, we have no information of any casualties, either fatalities or injuries, and all but two people have now checked in. It appears that the snipers were very poor shots.”
“Thank you. Who hasn’t checked in?”
“Operational security.”
“Okay. I understand. Do either of the names rhyme with whizzy?”
Luca Wyss cleared his throat. “No.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Thank you for checking in. We will have vehicles leaving the hotel for the airport as soon as everyone is secured here. Can I contact you at this number?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Stay in the room. Keep the door locked. We will contact you when it is time to leave.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“Good day, Ms. Johnson.”
She hung up. “He said that I should stay here.”
“You should stay here.” Alex ran his knuckles down the side of her face and tucked a hank of hair behind her ear. Her schoolmarm bun must be falling down.
“I could go to my own room. You can call me on the hotel phone when they want me to go to the cars.”
“That wasn’t a request.” He took her hand, and his serious stare right in her eyes unnerved her. “You need to stay here when I can protect you.”
“Alex, I’m okay. Really.” She was halfway sure that she could walk to her room without falling into a heap. “You don’t need to make sure everything is under control.”
He blinked his soft, brown eyes. “I always make sure that everything is under control. Everything.”
“That sounds like a lot of stress.”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you have to keep under control, your estate and your vineyards in France? I thought you were one of the idle rich?”
“Other things,” he said. He ran his knuckles beside her ear and down her neck. “What should we do in the meantime?”
A big, black guitar case slanted against one of the armchairs. “Play something for me.”
“I shouldn’t sing,” Alex said. “I am recovering from a throat infection. That is why I am so hoarse.”
“Just the guitar,” she said. “Play ‘Alwaysland’ for me, the way it’s meant to be played.”
His brown eyes took on a terrible wariness, and he dropped his hand away from her face. “All right.”
ALWAYSLAND
Alexandre de Valentinois
Alexandre could feel it streaming back at him.
The late afternoon sunlight poured in the windows, alighting on the blue couches and yellow silk armchairs and spreading across the blue and gold carpeting. The warm flowers released the last of their sweet scent into the air, perfumed roses and spicy hydrangeas with scents like sable fur and tingling chimes.
He felt like he was barely holding on to the here-and-now, the Parisian light and sweet air, but just beyond his vision lurked the darkness and hot pressure that was waiting for him on the other end of a plane ride.
As he reached for the black guitar case, a black miasma swirled between his fingertips and the fiberglas case.
He grabbed the case anyway and yanked it open. The base was too thick, and he turned his body so that Georgie wouldn’t see that there was obviously another compartment in it. The honey-colored guitar lay nestled in black velvet padding inside.
As he picked it up, he touched a string, vibrating a G note into the air.
Ripples of blue swam across his vision, not blocking anything out, precisely. It was more like he immediately remembered seeing them there a second ago.
He grabbed the neck of the guitar, silencing the steel string, but he could feel it creeping up on him again like obsession. He should have left the guitar on the bus, but he couldn’t travel without
the other one.
Some musicians had hidden compartments in their guitar cases for heroin and their works. Others had bags of cocaine or pot.
Alexandre had his own addition, one that was perhaps more destructive.
With the guitar in his hand, he slapped the lid closed so Georgie wouldn’t see.
As he turned around, he felt the other creeping up on him, hardening him, but he pushed it away. He was supposed to have a few more hours.
Alexandre sat on an armchair and propped the guitar between his knees. “Are you sure that you want to hear ‘Alwaysland?’”
“It seems like a great song. I’d like to hear what you did with it.”
He swallowed hard. “I shouldn’t sing.”
“Yeah, I know. Just the music, then.”
Alexandre warmed up his fingers, and the music flowed through his head and behind his eyes. “Alwaysland” was composed in shades of blue and teal with just enough amber running through it to liven up the tones, a melancholy tune.
He segued into the melody, picking out the melody line on the top couple string while he played the harmonies that he had written with the deeper tones.
Within a few minutes, he couldn’t help himself and began to hum along to warm up his voice. His voicebox warmed, flushed with blood, and his mind settled into the music.
In another few minutes, he was singing in a low, breathy voice, still with an open larynx to let the air through until he warmed up.
Sapphire and ocean green streaked with sunset swirled around Alexandre, and he felt the music wave through every cell in his body. Yes, he had written it and it was a part of him as much as a child would be, but when he performed it, he lived it again, and his heart pulsed and shattered with each lyric line. The chord change at the end brought in deep maroons and golds.
The song ran out, and he almost called it back to run through it again, but it was better to let it end.
Alexandre opened his eyes, and he was in a hotel room in Paris with a girl.
Georgie was staring at him, her tawny brown eyes wide and stunned. “Your voice is really evocative.”
