Say It Again (First Wives, #5)(6)

“I wonder how long it will take before I no longer feel as if I’m sneaking into the faculty’s lounge.”

Brigitte smiled. “It took me about a month.”

Sasha paused. “You were a student at Richter?”

“I was.”

“How come I didn’t know that?”

“It’s our policy that students have no knowledge of the instructor’s life outside of Richter. Our past, or families . . . nothing. It’s safer that way.”

The word safe had Sasha hesitating. “I’m safe now?”

“You came back. Very few students ever return to Richter.”

Sasha sipped her beer. “You mean students don’t want to return to a school that is half education, half prison, and half military training? I’m shocked.” Her condescending tone made it clear she wasn’t.

“There is one too many halves in there.”

“The military and education I understood. The prison aspect escapes me.”

Brigitte pushed a strand of her dishwater blonde hair behind her ear. “Even a whisper of a military boarding school as diverse as Richter, inside the borders of Germany after the Cold War, would be a lot for the general public to swallow. Having our students spending their evenings in places like this, talking and carrying on, would not be received well. You know the demographics of our students. It’s for everyone’s safety that the doors are locked at night.”

“I suppose.”

“Although I wouldn’t mind a little easing up on some of the rules.”

“Maybe things will with time.”

Brigitte tilted her head to the side. “Why did you come back?”

Sasha felt the eyes of someone on her and glanced around the pub with the slightest of movements. “Because Richter was something more for me than most. It was my home. I know I wasn’t the only orphan in attendance, I’m sure others have come back in the past.”

Only Brigitte didn’t confirm Sasha’s thoughts.

Heat moved up the back of her neck.

She didn’t turn around. Instead, Sasha leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Someone behind me is watching.”

Brigitte picked up her beer and used the movement to distract where her eyes went.

Instead of being alarmed, she grinned. “A very fine specimen.”

“Excuse me?”

Brigitte laughed. “Not everyone looking wants to hurt you. It appears he might want to do naughty things to you, but I doubt harm is his goal.”

Her shoulders relaxed and Sasha felt a genuine smile on her lips. “I’m sitting in a bar, drinking . . . and apparently picking up men, with Ms. Denenberg.”

“You pick up the men. Testosterone is not my flavor.”

Sasha knew her expression matched her surprise. “I had no idea.”

“Few ever do. I like to keep it that way.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Understood.”

Brigitte pushed her chair back. “I’ll be back.”

The moment she left, Sasha felt those standing hairs on her neck dance.

The secret man who was staring revealed himself as he slid into the chair Brigitte had vacated.

The casual smile Sasha had found the moment she stepped into the bar became one cloaked in caution. It didn’t say hello, it didn’t say go away . . . it was simply there.

“Hallo,” he greeted her with an attempt to sound like he was German.

Sasha said nothing and stared. Broad in the shoulders, taller than most men . . . the stubble on his chin was either a poor attempt at looking European or TSA confiscated his razor before he boarded the plane.

He licked his full lips, and not in a lecherous kind of way, but one filled with nerves.

She liked her men nervous.

“Please tell me you speak English,” he said after a moment of silence.

Sasha narrowed her eyes.

“French?”

Oh, please.

“You’re American.”

Those nerves she saw dangling off his skin now turned to confidence. “Thank God. Yes, I’m American.”

“And I speak English. Can I help you with something, Mr. American?” She let her Russian accent hold r’s a little longer.

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it . . . opened it again. Those nerves returned. “Everything running through my head right now sounds like a glossed-over pickup line. So, I’ll just ask if I can buy you a drink.”

Sasha looked at the beer she’d hardly touched, back to him. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“AJ. What’s yours?” His smile trickled up to his eyes and put an unfamiliar flutter deep in her gut.

She leaned forward. “I’m here with a friend, AJ. Which you obviously know, since you’ve been watching us since we walked in the door.”

“You’re hard to miss.” It should have sounded like a line. It didn’t. AJ turned his eyes to something behind her. “Your friend is coming back.”

“Then you should move along.”

“One drink.”

He was tempting . . . she’d give him that.

“I’m away less than five minutes and my seat is taken.”

AJ stood from Brigitte’s chair and pulled it out. “Sorry, I, ah . . .”