Page 20 of Once Upon A Time

“I am standing right here.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Asshole.” She moved a little closer to his chest.

Dieter slid his hand farther around her back. The tiny beads felt rough on his palm and caught on his calluses. “Rae doesn’t want to burn the world down.”

Flicka shrugged. “Occupational hazard.”

“How many girls’ schools are you going to build with the proceeds from tonight?”

Flicka glanced up at him, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Three, probably. Five at the most, depending on the final numbers.”

“That’s amazing. You did fantastically well.”

“Just doing my job,” she said.

“And how many have you built overall?”

She shrugged. “Almost a hundred, I think? I’m not sure.”

Her modesty usually surfaced in the form of feigned absentmindedness, Dieter knew. Wulf had told him that she had financed one hundred seventy-three schools, and Dieter bet Flicka knew it and, if pressed, could name them all. She had an interesting memory. He’d known about it for years.

Dieter asked, “And how many students?”

“At least a hundred kids at each one, so a few thousand, probably?”

Over twenty thousand students were enrolled in her schools in Asia, South America, and Africa, according to Wulf. Dieter’s heart warmed. “If Wulf ever let you into your trust funds, you would blow it all in a year.”

Flicka grinned. “An afternoon. It’s all set up, just in case he ever slips.”

“And then what would you do with no money?”

She shrugged. “Get a job as a party planner? I can organize a party better than anyone else.”

He looked around the Louvre, from the clouds of fairy lights to the sophisticated table linens to the perfectly organized menus and entertainment. “That, you could. You could probably run a war better than most generals.”

“It’s in my blood. We Hannovers have been warrior-princes for generations.”

Dieter believed that Flicka would win any war she commanded. She was a natural. He had caught her reading his military strategy books often when they had lived together in London. “Rae will fit right in with you murdering princes, then. She really is wonderful.”

“Sounds like somebody’s got a crush,” she teased.

Dieter laughed again. “She’s perfect forhim,not for me. Besides, as everyone tells me, I have terrible taste in women.”

“Again, I’m right-the-hell here!”

“But in that particular case, it was you who had terrible taste in men,” Dieter whispered to her. “Wholly inappropriate taste. But even I can tell that Rae is a lovely person.”

“Seriously?” Flicka asked. “I mean, I liked her, but I like everybody. I’m a terrible judge of character.”

That wasn’t true, either. “She’s perfect for him. The two of them can psychologically dissect everyone they meet with far more efficiency than they do individually. She doesn’t panic in emergencies. If there’s problem, she’ll grab him and pull him down. I might even be able to talk sense into him, someday, about staying home with her when there’s wet work to be done. Everywhere he is clueless, she’s smart.”

“Wulfie’s not clueless at anything,” Flicka insisted.

“You’ll stick up for him at every opportunity, won’t you? He’s bollocks at operational security. Last week, he opened a hotel room door to a knock without even looking out the peephole. Friedhelm chewed his ass out,and he laughed.Plus, Wulf thinks he’s the most evil man on the face of the Earth, that everyone else must be a better human being than he is.”

Flicka laughed. “He’s not even the most evil person in the family!”