The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

The two of them shared a strange look, something I found hard to interpret. But it was something like surprise and curiosity and just… something else. I didn’t know, but I wanted to.

“Christopher made you a frappe?” Cora asked, brows furrowed.

“Ah… yeah. Why?”

“I didn’t think he knew how,” Alexander told me.

“He did. He didn’t make it seem like it was a big deal.”

But maybe it was. Maybe he always relied on others to do for him. Which made it sort of sweet that he’d been willing to do it for me.

“Do you want chocolate, Alexander?” Cora asked, oddly wanting to brush the topic away when she usually liked to wax poetic about the little boy she’d helped raise into a man, and therefore had a motherly love for.

“If Miller says it is good, it must be. Miller,” he said, rolling my name over his tongue. “That is a strange name.”

“It’s my last name,” I told him. “I don’t like people in my work life calling me by my first name,” I added.

“Why not?” he asked, offering me an almond cookie. I’d already had three, but what was another pound or two in the grand scheme of things?

“Because it is a really feminine name. And sometimes men don’t take you as seriously when you are very feminine.”

“Says the woman who had been flirting with Chernev,” he shot back, gaining a slap to the side of his head from Cora. “It’s true,” he insisted, giving her hard eyes.

“Sometimes, women need to use everything at their disposal,” she shot back. “And men, they like when women flirt with them. She did it to help save you.”

“Believe me, I can do a hell of a lot better than Atanas Chernev.”

“That’s right,” Cora agreed with a firm nod. “She is a very beautiful woman. A little skinny, but we are working on that.”

Alexander shared an amused grin with me. “She tells me I am too thin all the time too.”

“I think she secretly just likes cooking for us,” I told him, grabbing another cookie off his plate.

“They don’t feed him enough at school. And you, you eat on the go too much.”

“Cora is teaching me how to cook,” I told Alexander.

“One perk to your imprisonment.”

“I don’t like this word,” Cora said, slamming a spatula down on the counter, making both of us immediately clam up, chastened. Even if we were somewhat right.

“Do you get a phone?” I asked him when Cora walked out back to pick some herbs she had growing in pots in the garden.

“No, he does not,” Christopher announced, making both our heads turn guiltily.

My lips pressed together to keep a smile in as he flipped open the binder I had put back on his deck, reading over my list.

If he had any feelings about the items listed, he showed no signs of it.

“The warden is back,” Alexander grumbled, pushing the plate of cookies away.

“Okay, frappe,” Cora said, coming back in. “I didn’t forget,” she added, though she clearly had for a moment. “Oh, Christopher. You’re home. Would you like a frappe? Miss Miller was telling us you made her one with chocolate.”

That got his attention.

His head rose, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he looked almost a little bashful.

“She wanted one,” he said simply. “But no, Cora, thank you. I have some arrangements to make,” he added, snapping the binder shut, making it clear what those arrangements were.

“What was in the binder?” Alexander asked when my smile broke out once he was gone.

“Your brother offered to get me anything I wanted while being in pris—” I started, cutting off when I looked at Cora’s back as she poured milk into glasses. “While I am staying here,” I corrected. “I got rather… inventive,” I told him, sharing a smile with him.

“You’re going to be a bad influence, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Wait, where are you going?” Cora asked as he took his frappe from her.

“I have a list to write,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“I think he likes having you here,” Cora concluded as he left.

“He just likes that I give him ideas to torment his brother.”

“He has had no women in his life,” she said, voice sad.

“What are you talking about? He has you,” I reminded her, shaking my head. “You’re a fantastic mother figure.”

“You’re very sweet. But I am no mother. Grandmother, maybe. He needs a mother.”

“He’s almost grown.”

“A child always needs a mother. Even if they’re forty.”

I couldn’t agree or disagree with that, never having had one myself.

“Alexander has turned out very well, Cora. You and Mr. Adamos have done a good job.”

“We’ve tried our best,” she told me, giving me a small smile. “Would you like to learn a new dish?” she asked, motioning to the space beside her.

“Sure,” I agreed, finding an unexpected bolstering in my confidence in learning to master this skill that had always eluded me.