Running Back (New York Leopards 2)

“Non. This is a private house. You can not just barge in.” He let out a puff of air. “It is this entitled attitude—”

Mike squared his shoulders. “Come on, man—”

“Mike, let’s just go—”

From another door, a man emerged, this one short and broad. “Ce qui se passe?”

The first man responded in rapid fire French far beyond me, but his frantic gestures made it quite clear we were disturbing the peace. “See?” I hissed at Mike. “Now it’s a whole issue.”

“Jesus, Nat, I’ve never seen you so worked up.” He pulled up his most soothing smile. “Uh, bonjour. Ma copine et moi would like to look around. Is that okay?”

Okay, he looked up how to say girlfriend in French. If I wasn’t so tense, I might find that cute.

But seriously, he couldn’t just smile and ask the same question over and over and hope the answer would change.

The second man opened his mouth, his gaze flicking over to include me as he spoke. “It is against policy—”

He stopped, and his jaw dropped almost comically. “Oh, putain.”

The other man glanced at him quickly, and then stared me down. I stood frozen.

Mike leaned over to murmur in my ear. “I’m going to assume that was something like sacre-bleu, which is the only French curse I know.”

Something like. “Hi.” I self-consciously pushed my hair back. He obviously recognized me—recognized my mother in me. “I’m Natalie Sullivan. My mother used to live here.”

“You have her eyes.” He dropped the Hs so the sentence was almost entirely a river of vowels.

I smiled uncomfortably.

“Such a great model, your mother.” He ran his eyes up and down my body. “You also?”

“Me? Model? No. No. I’m an archaeologist.”

Apparently that wasn’t as cool as modeling, because his nose crinkled slightly. He craned his head to see me from different sides, and then nodded. “You are tall enough.”

Well, excellent.

The man nodded, then turned to Mike. His gaze lingered on the red hair. “This is your boyfriend.”

“Yes. This is Mike O’Connor. He plays football—American football—in New York.”

“Ahh...” The man’s expression made his thoughts on American football very clear.

“We didn’t mean to bother you—we just thought we’d stop by—we were in the area—”

“Come. I will do your eyes.”

“No.” I would have backed away if I didn’t have a two-hundred pound weight holding my arm. “That’s okay. I just wanted to see where she lived.”

“Yes, I know. I will show you and tell you about her as I do your eyes.” He walked away, not waiting to see if we’d follow. “I met her when she first arrived. She was underfed, and underdressed, and she cried every night because she was lonely and didn’t speak French. She used to sing in Russian before she fell asleep.” His voice trailed off as he rounded a corner.

I couldn’t help it. I ran after him. “When did she learn French?”

“Mmm. I taught her. That’s why I came here, you know? Not because of my art. Ah, no, that is why I came here, but not why the agency took me. They took me because I speak Hungarian and Russian and they needed someone to help the new girls. And I wasn’t much older than them.”

“So what was she like? When she first came?”

“Like everyone. Here.” He led us up a cement staircase and into a hall. He narrowed his eyes at Mike. “Men are not allowed here.”