“Whatever I’m doing, it’s not casual.”
“Well, wouldn’t want to get a fellow officer in the doghouse with two women at once.”
“Thank you, Duke. I really appreciate that.”
He shook his head and actually patted my shoulder. “Being with one woman is hard enough, Blake. Good luck to you.”
“Thanks, and could I have a few minutes alone to explain the no more PDA for the rest of the trip?”
“How many of them are staying for the talk?”
I looked at them and realized that it was everyone but Milligan and Custer. “All of them, I guess, except for Otto Jeffries.”
He laughed. “Then I can give you privacy, Blake, but this is not the definition of being alone.”
“No arguments,” I said.
Leduc went inside, but Olaf didn’t want to go without us—okay, mostly me—so I told him a version of the same thing I’d told Leduc. “I need some privacy to talk to the women in my life, Otto. We need to make it clear that this is the last PDA while I’m working. I smoothed it over with Leduc once, but I can’t do it twice.”
“You have explained it to them,” he said.
I shook my head. “One of the hard things about dating women is that it takes more explaining to explain things, especially emotional ones.”
He stared at me, frowning, thinking hard. “You are admitting that women are not logical?”
“No, but they are more complicated than men when it comes to dating and romance.”
He seemed to think about that and then finally shook his head. “I will agree, and I will leave you to speak to the . . . women in your life.”
Olaf started walking toward the offices. When he walked through the door, Edward tipped his hat to me from the little porch and followed inside.
Once they were inside and the rest of us were as alone as we were going to get, I turned on them and said, “You have minutes to tell me why the fuck Pierette is here. Isn’t it enough that I fit his victim profile? Did you have to endanger someone else?”
“I am your bodyguard. It is my duty to put myself between you and danger,” Pierette said, and she didn’t sound the least bit frightened now. She stood tall and certain, as if the woman who had just finished hiding behind me was someone else. It reminded me of how Edward could switch to Ted.
“What exactly does that mean?” I asked.
Pierette just looked at me with her brown eyes, made larger with the eyeliner, which she never wore at home. “I serve my queen in any way she requires.”
I turned to the one person I knew had to tell me the truth. “What the hell is going on, Nicky?”
“It wasn’t my idea. I knew you’d hate it,” he said.
“What wasn’t your idea?”
“To bring Pierette and Angel here to help you deal with Olaf.”
Then I had a thought, and he was right. I hated it. “Pierette, you were pretending to be afraid of him just now. It’s not enough that you look like his favorite type of victim. You’re playing to it.”
“I am afraid of him, my queen. I would not want to be helpless in his hands. I merely let him see the fear rather than hiding it.” She was so calm as she spoke.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
“To tempt him.”
“What?” Angel tried to put an arm around my shoulders, and I moved away from her. “And you, why are you flirting with him?”
“If you mean the clothes, I was at the concert. I didn’t wear them for anyone here.”