Two Weeks in Geneva: Book Three by Lydia Rowan Page A

shelf covered with a cheery-patterned curtain but had removed it at his request, his response to inquiry as to why a vague, “It is good to see.” She hadn’t pressed.
    Before moving to the final area of the apartment, he quickly took in the living room, where the furnishings consisted of a loveseat she’d reclaimed from the side of the road, a twenty-one-inch television she couldn’t remember where she’d gotten, and a plastic storage bin, which also doubled a coffee table, that contained most of her wardrobe. The few items that she owned that required hanging were discreetly, or so she hoped, hung on a rack in the corner.
    She’d curtained off a section of the space to create a bedroom and was silently thankful that he hadn’t asked her to remove that curtain as well. It wasn’t much, just a couple of sheer, iridescent panels of fabric that she’d picked up for practically free, but she loved the illusion they created, how every time she parted them and entered her “bedroom” they made her feel like she was entering an entirely different space, a private oasis of sorts, not that she was lying down on the iron Murphy bed that came preinstalled in the terrace-level studio apartments of a marginal building in a marginal neighborhood. As silly as it was, those curtains were like a turnstile, a barrier at which she could shed all the troubles of the outside world and enter that special place free and buoyed.
    She’d never allowed anyone, anyone , into that special place, but with him it hadn’t been a question. His presence made her feel much the same way the curtains did, and him behind them was almost otherworldly, an escape from her real life that she’d come to rely on like a drug. Disturbingly so, in fact, as evidenced by her willingness, no, her eagerness, to allow a stranger into her home, to put up with his repeated, and frankly scary, searches, and even to alter her decor, all for just a few illicit hours with him.
    It was madness.
    She never wanted it to end.
    As was their unspoken custom, she moved to the kitchen area and put on a kettle for tea while he did a quick pass of the bathroom. It took less than a minute since the room was microscopic. Still, the transition was an integral part of the routine, and somehow, in those brief seconds that he spent in the bathroom, he went from a lethal-seeming, scary figure to a gentler, softer version. He remained dangerous, of that she had no doubt, but the hardness, the edge, that he entered with evaporated and left the intriguing man she’d grown to crave.
    “What kind of tea shall we have today?” he asked in his deep, very lightly accented voice.
    She started, though by now she should have been used to his stealthy movements.
    “Got me again,” she said with a laugh.
    “You get lost in your thoughts. You should pay more attention to your surroundings.”
    She suppressed the stab of irritation but couldn’t stop her sarcastic words as she turned to face him. “What, you mean I should be safe? Not talk to strangers and all that?”
    Her verbal jab didn’t escape him, and in an instant, his gaze hardened, revealed the predator lurking. She held her breath for a moment, uncertain, worried she’d pushed him too far. But a smile broke through, first in his eyes, followed by the slight upturn of his lips, and like that, the tension faded.
    “I am only looking out for you, Julie. Your heart is too kind, and that makes you vulnerable.”
    “Or maybe just a fool,” she responded.
    He tsked and shook his head disapprovingly. “Don’t put yourself down, Julie.”
    This was a familiar discussion. He was convinced she was weak and soft, and while she couldn’t fault the assumption, particularly given their unorthodox relationship, she still struggled to convince him she could take care of herself. She’d had tons of practice, after all. He took the offered cup, and they settled at the rickety kitchen table.
    “This still wobbles,” he