Chapter 7
It was times like this where he wished he wasn’t on the field trip, and not because he didn’t want to be in Paris. Adrienne did things to him that he couldn’t explain and after last night, he couldn’t stop thinking her. He was almost irritated that they had other activities planned for the day when he’d much rather spend more alone time to get to know her. With the students, she kept things light and professional, but she really seemed to open up to him when they were alone. Seeing the way she blushed and bit her lip when he whispered the things he wanted to do to her turned him on greatly. He took a major risk in doing that and though the physical part of her seemed to accept it, he had no idea what was going on in her mind. He needed to get a grip on himself though; he definitely didn’t want to be sporting a hard-on around the students, other chaperones, and the instructor. He also didn’t want to burn a bridge with her before he even got to cross it.
Adrienne finally put the croissants in the oven and came back to the table. “So what’s next?” she asked, looking around at the remaining ingredients.
“Whatever you want it to be.”
“Um…” Her eyes scanned everything. “We should go ahead and get the mini lemon tarts out of the way, I guess.”
“Lemon tarts it is,” he said, pulling the recipe sheet to the front of the stack.
They worked in silence for a little while, tossing ingredients into bowl. After a while, Adrienne looked up at him. “Can I ask you something?”
“What’s up?” he asked, cracking an egg on the side of the bowl, smashing it and making a mess all over the bowl and counter. “Shit.”
“Jeez, calm down on the strength, He-Man,” Adrienne said with a giggle, grabbing a towel to clean up the mess.
“Sorry, I’ll get it,” he said, taking the towel from her, his hand lingering on hers for a bit.
“I um…what did you mean back at the market?” she asked.
He paused in his cleaning and met her gaze. Although he knew exactly what she was talking about, it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss at the moment. Even he didn’t full understand how he felt in order to explain it to her. There was something about her that immediately pulled him to her the minute he laid eyes on her. He didn’t think it was love at first sight, but it was definitely something. It had to be in order for him to volunteer as a chaperon for a trip just to get close enough to her. Maybe it was her eyes, that always carried a hint of pain no matter how she felt, pain that he saw in his own. Or it could’ve been the smile that lit up her face when she laughed that made him realize that was something he wanted in his life. Now that he was getting to know her, maybe it was just that he knew she needed someone to love her and put her back together after she’d been broken from grief, just as he needed.
“Myles?” she called, snapping him out of his musings.
He focused back on her and slightly shook his head. “Um, I’m sorry. What were you saying?”
“I was asking what you meant at the market,” she repeated.
“What do you mean?”
“With what you said…about you wanting me.”
He busied himself in stirring the filling. “It’s pretty self explanatory, isn’t it?”
“I mean yeah, but it seemed like it came out of nowhere,” she mentioned. “So what do you mean? As I said, you hardly know me.”
“Adrienne, you don’t have to completely know someone in order to want them. Some people believe in love at first sight and maybe it’s kind of like that.” When her eyebrows rose at the word “love,” he added, “I’m not saying I’m in love. It’s just…there was something about you that drew me to you.”
“Oh really? Like what exactly?” she asked, leaning against the table on her elbows.
He continued stirring and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because I saw your smile one time and wanted it to be a part of my life every day. Or maybe I took one look in your eyes and realized that I’d want to wake up to that gaze in the morning.” He met her bewildered gaze. “Or maybe because I can see the pain you’ve been through and want to heal your heart.”
She stared at him for a long while before she finally turned away, grabbing a bowl to start making the dough. Her silence bothered him greatly. He didn’t know if he’d caused her to put her wall back up or if she was just processing what he said. He glanced over at her, but her face held no emotion. Either she was becoming better at hiding her feelings or she was just indifferent to what he’d said to her.
“What if I turn out to be who you didn’t expect?” she finally asked.
He gave her a small smile. “I don’t have any expectations. I’m simply just trying to get to know you,” he replied. She gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“You just have a perfect answer for everything, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but I have been told that I’m a smooth talker,” he said playfully.
“I’m sure,” she said. They continued working, making small talk and joking around to try to ease the sexual tension pulling at the both of them. He noticed how she’d purposely have her hand brush his and the look she gave him whenever their eyes met.
“So…are you doing anything in particular for lunch?” she asked as she put the lemon tart filling into the mini pie shells she’d made.
He glanced at her with a smirk. “Do you have something in mind?”
“I thought that maybe we could have lunch together,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on the task at hand.
“Sounds good. Where at?”
“Well, we’re all going to the cafe at the hotel. I heard it’s nice,” she answered.
He smiled. “I’d like that.”
***
Ghost and Adrienne settled down at a table at the back of the small cafe. He watched her as she popped a fry into her mouth, a slight grin on his lips as he watched her chew. Everything she did was so cute, from the way she wrinkled her nose to the way her mouth moved as she chewed. His eyes dropped to her lips, imagining what they’d feel like against his own.
“What?” she asked when her gaze met his.
He shook his head with a grin. “You’re just really beautiful,” he said.
A light blush colored her cheeks as she smiled and turned her eyes to her fish and chips tray. “Well, thank you.”
“What made you want to become a teacher?” he asked.
She shrugged. “My mom is a teacher and I remember wanting to play school with my brothers when I was younger and pretend to grade papers whenever my mom did. I also enjoy working with kids, so I thought it would be a perfect career.”
“And why French?”
“Why not? I mean it’s the language of love, right?” she asked with a smirk.
He chuckled. “I suppose so.”
“But in all seriousness, I fell in love with it when I was in high school. I actually only took it because I was kind of embarrassed to take Spanish being a Latina and all, but it came to me so easily and wanted to dive deeper into the language.”
“Well, you speak French as if you were born speaking it.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. It’s rather sexy,” he said.
A shy grin settled on her lips. “Well, why did you choose the Navy?” she asked, changing the subject.
“I love the water and was interested in boats,” he simply said.
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s it? Just water and boats?” she asked.
He couldn’t go into great detail about it. The main reason he went into the Navy was mostly to become a SEAL. The classified missions and tasks they went on always kept him on his toes and although dangerous, made his life much more interesting than waiting around to go to war on a boat.
“Yeah, just water and boats. But I joined the military because I wanted to dedicate my life to something that had meaning. Protecting the country and fighting for the freedom everyone has gives my life purpose. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”
“Well, that’s pretty noble of you,” she said with a soft smile. “I’m sure Miguel thought the same thing when he joined the police force.”
“I’m sure he did,” he said idly, glancing out the corner of his eye to see Josephine sitting a few table away with her friends as they took selfies on her phone. She was still pretty pissed about the market situation, hardly talking to him since he scared those suspicious guys off.
“Myles?” Adrienne called out.
He blinked and turned his attention back to her. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
“I’d asked what you saw for yourself in the future,” she asked.
He raised an eyebrow and he bit into a fry. “In regard to what?”
“With everything, I guess. Career, life, whatever.”
He stroked his chin in thought. There were a lot of things he saw for himself, mostly a future with Adrienne in it and lots of beautiful little babies running around. That wouldn’t necessarily be an appropriate thing to tell her though. He’d pushed the envelope far enough for one day.
“Just being happy,” he finally said.
“I guess that’s all one can really hope for,” she said, taking a sip of her lemonade.
When he glanced back to Josephine’s table, the girls were no longer sitting there. The other students still sat at their tables as they ate, talking amongst each other. Ghost’s senses immediately went into high alert. Maybe she went up to the room, he thought, but quickly thought better of it. She would’ve told him if she were. Or maybe not if she’s still pissed.
“Josephine’s gone,” he said, standing to his feet. Adrienne looked around and saw the empty table the girls once sat at.
“Actually all three of them are gone,” she said, strolling over to Beth, another chaperone, who occupied a table near the door. “Hey, Beth, did you see Josephine, Pia, and Erica leave?”
Beth finished chewing the salad in her mouth. “They asked to go to the bathroom. They haven’t come back yet? That was almost ten minutes ago.”
No sooner than the words left her mouth, Erica ran back to the cafe, her face completely red and full of terror. “They took Josephine and Pia!” she all but screamed. She began babbling incoherently until Adrienne placed gentle hands on her shoulders to calm her.
“Okay, calm down,” Adrienne coaxed, worry settling on her own features. “What happened?”
“They took Josephine and Pia. I tried to stop them, but—”
“Who took her? You guys were supposed to be in the bathroom,” Ghost gritted through his teeth, trying to remain calm to get the information he needed.
“She got a text from a guy to meet him outside of the hotel because he and another guy had something for her and Pia. So we all asked to go to the bathroom and instead snuck out to meet him. When they saw me, they just said I wasn’t pretty enough and told me to stay where I was. They walked Pia and Josephine down the sidewalk and then they picked up them and threw them into a blue van and left,” she said, her bottom lip trembling.
“Do you remember what they looked like?” he asked.
“Um…h-h-he was a tall, blonde guy and the other guy had dark hair and a tan, I think.”
The two men from earlier flashed in his mind. “Were those the guys talking to you all at the market?” he asked.
“Yes,” she admitted in a near whisper.
“I fucking knew that guy was up to no good,” Ghost growled, moving past the women toward the lobby, but Adrienne caught him by the elbow.
“Where are you going? We should call the police first.”
“Where do you think I’m going? I’m going to go find my sister. I can find her faster than the police will,” he snapped, walking out of the cafe back to the elevator to get to his room.
“But we don’t even know where to start!” she called behind him but he ignored her as he nearly ran to the elevator, pressing the up button so hard that he was surprised it didn’t jam. When he got to the room, it was empty with Josephine’s clothes scattered all over her bed from this morning. Being in the room left a hollow feeling within him to know that her things were here, but she was somewhere else.
He ran his hands over his head in frustration before slamming his fists down on the table. “Fuck!” he shouted, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes. He should’ve kept a better eye on him, especially when he noticed the guy tailing them. He didn’t know if this was something related to his SEAL affiliation or something entirely different, but he did know that the longer she and her friend were gone, the more dangerous this mission became. With his team back at home and his resources limited, he had no idea how he was going to pull this off.
Grabbing his phone, he pulled up Wolf’s contact information and called him. “Pick up, pick up, pick up,” he muttered, pacing the floor.
“Hey there, Ghost. It’s a little early for drinks, don’t you think?” Wolf joked when he answered.
“It’s not about drinks,” Ghost said. “My sister was taken.”
“Taken? Like kidnapped?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit,” he muttered. “Where are you now?”
“Still at the hotel. Think you can meet me here?”
“Yeah, just text me the address and I’ll be there ASAP.”
“I’ll get that sent and meet you in the lobby.”
“Roger that,” he said and hung up.
Ghost clenched the phone in his hand as frustration washed over him. He should’ve been more careful and attentive. He was going to find his sister, even if he had to turn this city upside down in order to do so.