Surrender

He squeezed my ass. “This one is a winner.”

“Hey.” I slapped his hand away. I spun toward him. “Tell me everything.”

“Keep getting naked and I will.” He grinned.

I changed into a pale blue dress. It would have been prettier if my skin wasn’t so pale from the harsh winter, but there was a plan for that. I had a date with a spray tan salon this afternoon.

A group of teenage girls moved into the stall next to mine. I heard them giggle and chatter in high notes of French. The walls went all the way to the floor so I couldn’t count how many girls there were, but the walls didn’t reach the ceiling. Their voices carried from one side to another. It was a reminder we needed to stay quiet.

“Next one.” Vaughn pointed to the bikini.

I huffed. “Tell me what you’ve come up with.”

I didn’t expect the shopping trip to turn into this. I didn’t know why I thought it would take weeks or months for him to develop a plan. He was so embedded in Blackwing. He had worked for them for years. I never thought he’d run this quickly. Where were we going? Who would we be when we got there?

His hands landed on my hips and he drew me to him. I felt exposed in the tribal fabric. His thumbs ran over my hipbones.

“This is definitely the one.”

His eyes lifted to mine. I focused on his long lashes, sexy as always.

“Are you going to make me guess?” I asked. I was seconds

away from tapping my foot on the floor.

“After this, you have your tanning appointment. We’ll go back to the flat and talk about the movie we’re going to see tonight. We are going to the theater, buying tickets, and then meeting our photographer ten minutes into the film. It’s a little indie theater. He has a photography studio in the lower level,” he revealed.

“What? What photographer?”

“The one who is going to shoot you in all these clothes. He’s going to make you look like you’re on vacation in the islands.”

“And post them for us?”

Vaughn nodded. “Yes. He’s going to drop these into a dummy account he’s been building on Instagram. Once the FBI sees them, they will track everything. They will mobilize. Agents will be on the ground.”

“Ok, and Blackwing? They know I’m not in the islands. They aren’t going to run there. They will know from the beginning they are fake. They know I’m trained not to be on social media.”

“It gets trickier. The timing has to be perfect. The coder is dropping the pictures like bread crumbs.”

I wanted to change out of the bikini, but I was holding my breath. I couldn’t move until I knew the rest of the plan.

“I understand the FBI part. I don’t get how we throw them together.”

“We’re going to lure the FBI here.”

I shook my head. “Here? As in Paris?”

Vaughn took my hands in his. “Yes. To Paris. To our flat. We’re going to hand them Blackwing.”

“And Eloise?” My throat had clamped shut.

He smiled. “On a silver platter.”

Chapter Nineteen

I fidgeted too much. Looked over my shoulder too much. Perspired too much.

“It’s not a horror movie, babe,” Vaughn reassured me as we stood in line to buy tickets for the next showing. He saw the signs of my agitation.