Revealing Us (Inside Out #3)(48)

“He doesn’t have any answers yet, but his answer would be the same. Tell them you aren’t at liberty to talk without counsel, or simply buy time and I’ll tell them.”

“Mademoiselle McMillan,” the man behind the desk says, a sharp bite to his words.

I hold up a inger. “One more minute.”

He grinds his teeth. “One only.”

“I heard that,” Chris says. “He’s just trying to intimidate you. Pretend he’s Mark trying to get under your skin. Lift that little chin of yours and stand tall.”

Mark couldn’t put me behind bars. I change the subject before I run out of time. “Please tell Rey to take Chantal home.”



“Not until I get there.”

“Please. I don’t want them to hear the accusations against me. How can I make a life here with you if everyone you know thinks I’m a . . .”—I can’t say murderer—“criminal?”

“No one is going to know about this.”

“They already told Chantal there’s an investigation in the States. Please. Get them to leave.”

“I have to know if they take you somewhere, Sara. And I’m almost there. I’m hanging up to focus getting to you.

Don’t speak to them about anything.” He hangs up before I can argue.

I squeeze my eyes shut and draw in a thick, hard-earned breath, before sliding my phone into my purse and turning toward the men on the other side of the room. Crossing the distance between us, I pause in front of his desk. “Monsieur . . . ?”

“Bernard,” he supplies.

“Monsieur Bernard,” I repeat. “Can you direct me to the toilette?”

He studies me a moment. “Can’t it wait?”

His tone verges on rudeness and I reply with sticky-sweet innocence. “I’m feeling quite queasy. Something I ate, I believe.

Tartare. I thought to spare your desk a mess.”

He openly scowls and speaks to a man over his shoulder, then to me again. “Monsieur Dupont will escort you.”

I’m such a criminal they need to escort me? The man, bald and in his midifties, with a hard, round face, approaches me.

Chris’s words from last night play in my head. We attack the problems. They don’t attack us. And baby, we do it together. I inhale deeply. We do it together. And it hits me then that “together”

doesn’t mean handing over my life to Chris. It means sharing it. Unlike others in my life before him, Chris is trying to make me stronger. Hiding in the bathroom until he arrives is not stronger.

Straightening, my chin lifts, and while the uneasy sensation in my belly remains, I am stronger. I walk to the chair and sit down. Surprise lashes on his face. “You’re ready to answer questions?”

“No. I’m not ready at all. I’m waiting on a call from my attorney.” I lean forward, resting my hand on the desk, my voice as steady now as his. “And, Monsieur Bernard, if you slander my name with anyone, especially my friends outside, you will know my name far better than you wish you did.”

The surprise he’d shown seconds before morphs into a stunned expression. It matches what I’m feeling. Where did that come from? His brow furrows. “You are quite deiant for a woman accused of murder.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Accused by the very woman who tried to kill me two nights ago—so, yes, you bet I’m deiant.”

And why haven’t I been before now? I’m innocent. I’m a victim. I’m furious that I’m being questioned.

“Then why did you lee the country?”

“I did not lee the country,” I state calmly.

“She came with me.”

I twist around to ind Chris standing in the doorway, his hair a damp mess, droplets of water clinging to the black Harley jacket he wears with the same ease he does his power. The entire room seems to suck in a breath at the same moment, waiting for what will come next. Waiting for him.



His attention ixes on me, and it’s as if no one else were in the room. He sees me. He’s dismissed them.

“I told you I was close, baby,” he drawls, seemingly unaf-fected by the situation. He saunters into the room, and while he’s all casual coolness and sexy swagger, there is a lethal, primal quality just beneath his surface. I might be trying to take control myself, and I want to, but it’s a beautiful thing watching Chris be Chris.

He stops beside my chair and holds out a hand. His eyes are gentle, yet somehow still glinting with hard steel and pure dominance. Holding his gaze, I slip my purse onto my shoulder and press my palm into his. A warm, tingling sensation dances up my arm and I see Chris’s eyes dilate, awareness seeping into his unwavering stare. He feels it, too—this crazy, impossible attraction between us that’s contained by nothing, not even the jerks watching us. I love that about us. I love us.

His ingers close around mine and he pulls me to my feet.

“We’re leaving. We have museums to visit.”

Bernard speaks in rapid, agitated French.

Chris licks him a bored look and says something in reply.

Maybe two sentences. I’m dying to know what; I really have to step up my game.

I glance at Bernard,whose peeved expression is pretty darn telling—as is the defensive way he crosses his arms in front of his chest. Whatever Chris has said, Bernard oicially has his panties in a wad, and I almost laugh.