Page 18 of France Face-Off
“The offer stands open. You can stay here. I’d say you can trust me, but, seeing as you’re not a trusting soul, you’ll have to take your chances.”
She stared at him through narrowed eyes.
He held up two fingers like a Boy Scout. “I do so solemnly swear to be a gentleman, but then again, there are your trust issues.”
Alex drew in a deep breath. She didn’t have anywhere else to go, and she was tired. “Okay, I’ll stay.”
“You can sleep in the chair,” he said. “Or you can sleep in the king-size bed with me. It’s plenty big enough for two people.”
“I’ll sleep in the chair,” she said, cutting him off.
Chapter 5
Striker was surprised when Alex agreed to stay the night in his room. He’d really thought she would leave and look for someplace else to sleep. Given the late hour and the fact that she’d have to let the desk know why she was moving from her room, he guessed she’d decided it made sense for her to stay with him.
He’d promised her he wouldn’t touch her, and he’d stand by that promise even though his groin tightened at the thought of sleeping in the same room with the beauty. He guessed it would be a long night with little sleep for either one of them.
Despite having told her she’d have to sleep in the chair, he found himself saying, “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He wanted to kick himself for offering, but he knew it was the right thing to do.
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll sleep in the chair. The floor is too hard for anyone to sleep on.”
He chuckled. “I’ve slept on much worse.”
She frowned in his direction. “I wouldn’t think that escorts would have to sleep on floors very often.”
Realizing his mistake, he backpedaled. “It happens,” he said. His reference to sleeping on hard surfaces went back to his time spent sleeping on the ground or in the rubble of bombed buildings as a Navy SEAL on a mission. He wasn’t there as a Navy SEAL, and she didn’t need to know that he used to be one. “Please,” he said, “take the bed.”
He dragged the comforter and one of the pillows off the mattress, made a pallet on the floor and stretched out to prove he was sincere.
She stared down at him on the floor, a frown denting her perfect brow. “This is your room. It doesn’t seem right for you to sleep on the floor.”
“Nevertheless, I am. So, somebody ought to sleep in that bed.” He laced his hands behind his neck and closed his eyes.
“How do you know I won’t try to kill you in your sleep?” she asked.
“I pride myself in being a good judge of character,” he said. “You don’t strike me as someone who would kill a man in his sleep.”
She snorted. “You are too trusting.”
He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “And you don’t trust enough.”
Alex crossed her arms over her chest. “How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?”
“If I’d intended to kill you, I’d have done so by now. As I’m sure, if you’d intended to kill me, you’d have done so by now.”
Alex kicked off the slippers she’d worn during her escape from her room and crawled onto the king-size bed. As soon as she was settled, she was back out again.
“Did you forget something?’ he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “I like to keep a light burning. Do you mind if I leave the one on in the bathroom?”
“Not at all,” he said. “I can sleep through anything and, at the same time, I’m a light sleeper.”
The bathroom light was still on. All she did was open the door a little, leaving just a crack to let light into the room. She returned to the bed and switched off the light on the nightstand. Then she lay down in the bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin.
Silence stretched between them. A million questions ran through Striker’s mind. He still didn’t know much about this woman, other than her parents had been killed in a house fire. She might be telling the truth about being a translator, but she seemed to be more than that, and she wasn’t telling him what that other part of her was. Then again, he wasn’t telling her who he really was and why he was there. Still, the mission didn’t define him, and he suspected it didn’t define her either. “You speak fluent Russian. Where did you learn it?” he asked into the shadowy darkness.
For a moment, she didn’t respond. Just when he’d thought she’d gone to sleep, she said quietly, “My parents. They were born and raised in Russia and immigrated to the United States shortly after they were married and barely out of their teens. We lived in the United States for the first few years of my life, where I learned to speak both English and Russian. Then we moved to Germany. For the next few years, I went to German schools. Immersed in the language, I learned it quickly. Then my parents moved back to Russia, where I went to Russian schools until I turned eighteen.”
