Page 62 of In Shining Armor

Vodka By Any Other Name

Flicka von Hannover

Let’s say this bottle of mineral water

is vodka.

Flicka followed Dieter over to the small kitchenette, and he poked around in the half-size refrigerator. “Aaron is the strong, silent type, but he does like his food. Are you hungry?”

“Not really.” She leaned against the counter.

“You didn’t have lunch. You should eat.” He took a whole, roasted chicken with small potatoes from the fridge, along with a container of hummus and a bag of sliced vegetables. He emptied two baguettes from a long paper bag.

They were in Paris. Of course, there was bread.

And three bottles of wine.

Not so much of a safe house as a party house,Flicka mused.

She found plates in a cabinet. “The hummus is a little surprising.”

“Aaron is Israeli. Whenever he stocks a safe house, he makes sure there’s hummus, just in case he’s invited.” Dieter dunked a cucumber chip in the hummus and crunched it. “And in every city, everywhere around the world, he always knows where to get the best hummus. Damn, this is good. Now sit and eat some of Paris’s best hummus.”

When she had been cramming for exams in London, Dieter had always made sure she ate enough. She tended to stress-starve, and he was probably right. That breakfast he had demanded she eat in the morning had settled her stomach.

She ate some of the chicken, pulling shreds off with her fingers, and dunked vegetables in the hummus.

Dieter held out a chunk of good, Parisian bread to her, and even though the carb warning bells clanged in her head, she ate it.

The crisp crust and white, pillowy interior seduced her, and she chowed down several slices before any sort of sense caught up with her. In minutes, she was practically high from the sudden rush of carbohydrates, and she giggled.

Dieter opened the wine. A dry white, as they were eating chicken.

Aaron had even paired the wine.

While he had surveilled her lawyers’ offices.

Dieter had mad hiring skills. Maybe Flicka needed to get him to hire people for her admin team.

She noticed that Dieter was drinking a bottle of water, but she sucked down the wine.

He was on duty, so he couldn’t drink.

She was a fugitive. Shedeservedwine.

Flicka poured herself another glass. As the pale goldvinofilled her glass past the halfway mark, she caught Dieter eyeing the glass.

She asked him, “What?”

“Under any other circumstances, I would have nothing to say. However, despite the fact that we have called this apartment a ‘safe house,’ there’s nothing safe about it. Pierre’s Secret Service is a state-run operation. They have legitimate and constant access to resources that we can only hack into. It is possible that they could show up on our doorstep. Hopefully, if they arrived, we would have notice from one of my guys down the street—”

“So you have guys down the street,” she said. “They’ll warn us.”

“I havetwoguys down the street. Others should be arriving tonight for our trip to the lawyers’ office tomorrow. But if anything happens, I can’t fight them and carry you if you’re drunk.”

Flicka got a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge and popped the cap off. “Not that three glasses of wine would do anything to me. I drink all night at these charity things. My liver can handle any liquor I throw at it.”

Dieter watched her sip the sparkling water and smiled a little. “You used to get pretty drunk when we were in college.”