Page 69 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

King

“Starting to rethink my stance on ball gowns and covert operations.” Alex stopped, teetering on her high heels long enough

to give her gown a rip. The slit in her skirt soared higher, but she didn’t even stop to care. They just ran faster.

“This way.” King steered her down another street. This one was narrow and darker, lined with tiny cafés and candlelit tables,

so he draped an arm around her shoulders and they slowed their pace—just another lovesick couple out for a stroll as they

tried to blend in. But blending wasn’t good enough. They needed to disappear.

The street must have been popular with tourists, because a band played “La Vie en rose” in the distance, and King felt her

lean against his shoulder and sigh. “I guess we finally made it to Paris.”

He pulled her into a shadowy alcove and framed her face with his hands. “Should have been here with you a year ago.” He brushed

a kiss across the corner of her mouth. “Should have followed you. Should have...”

There were sirens in the distance—lights and the sounds of shouting men—and Alex tensed. Her gaze flew over his shoulder,

watchful. Worried. “They shouldn’t have been able to throw up this kind of net this quickly.”

“Merritt knew we were coming.”

She pulled back and studied him, something like heartbreak in her eyes. “Merritt knows us .”

For the first time in a long time, he wanted to tell Alex she was wrong, but she wasn’t.

Merritt knew them better than they knew themselves—it was why she’d spent the last ten years forcing the two of them onto yachts and into hotel rooms and car trunks.

She’d been playing this game since before they were born, and for the first time, King wondered if she’d still be playing it after he was dead.

King wasn’t going to let that happen, though. They were almost to the bridge. And if they could get there...

A police car zoomed down the street, blue light spinning in the night, so King pressed Alex into the shadows and waited for

the car to pass before he said, “Come on.”

“Michael—”

But King had her hand in his and was already leading her away. Even when the band stopped playing. Even when the tires screeched

and the sirens wailed.

“Michael!” Alex was looking over her shoulder because she knew what it meant.

They were running out of time.

“Come on!” She tried to pull him faster. She tried to make him run. “They’re looking for us, or do I need to draw you a map?”

But King knew exactly where they were when he pulled her to a stop and pressed her against the railing of the bridge. The

Seine was rushing below them. The City of Light was shining all around. Paris was alive and so were they—for the moment.

“Come—”

“Wait.” He was too big and too stubborn for her to pull. “They’re looking for us .”

“I know! That’s why—”

“ Us , Sterling. Alex.” Something about the way she turned to him... something about it broke him, because the love of his life

was no fool. She was already shaking her head.

“No.”

“We should split up.”

“No.”

“We have a better chance apart. They’re looking for a couple. If we split up...”

King knew the odds and the theories. He’d memorized the pro tocol in the cradle, and he would take the truth to his grave because, like it or not, Michael Kingsley and Alexandra Sterling were very good spies. They just made each other stupid sometimes. And it had to end. Now.

“No!”

“Listen to me.” King cradled her face in his hands. “Maybe I was wrong—”

“You’re never wrong.” He watched her try to pull the words back. “I mean, you are, but only when you disagree with me. Which

makes you wrong right now!”

“Alex!” He had to make her listen. He had to make her see. So he said, “ Mercy .”

“No.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “Michael—”

“Maybe you were always better off on your own.”

“No.” She was tugging and pulling—still an unstoppable force to his immovable object.

“I wanted to give you forever.” He brushed away a strand of hair that had blown across her cheek.

“You have,” she told him. “You will. We will.”

But the sirens just got louder, and he tried to force out a smile, because Michael Kingsley knew many things, but in that

moment, there was only one that mattered.

“No, sweetheart.”

“But—”

“I can’t give you forever.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard. “But I can buy you five minutes.”

Then he picked her up and dropped her over the side of the bridge.