Oath of Office

Gaspard shrugged. “It is a logical argument. The French language is a romance of the tongue. Just speak a few words of it and you will see for yourself.”

“I am to assume you are French?”

“Oui,” he said. “Tu parles français?”

She held up the thumb and forefinger of her free hand. “Un peu.” A little. “I prefer English.”

“Pity,” Gaspard said. “‘Please rub my back with oil’ sounds much too forward in English.”

The young woman stifled a laugh — a good sign, to be sure. “You are certainly the bold one.”

“I have a very important meeting in two hours. That allows me only a finite amount of time in which to meet you, dance around the niceties of social discourse, and then invite you to my villa before dinner.”

The woman lowered the book to her chest, still open, and cocked her head to one side. Perfect brunette locks brushing tan shoulders. Not a blonde after all, but, oh, the glorious freckles splashed across her nose. “Before dinner?”

The young woman scooted into a sitting position, hugging exquisite knees. Gaspard could plainly see the lines of many scars along her thighs — an automotive accident, or possibly an athletic injury. He could picture her, splashed with freckles while she played football with the local boys. She may have been a garçon manqué—a tomboy — growing up, but she was certainly all woman now.

“I see no point in wasting time,” Gaspard said. “As I mentioned, I have a meeting in two hours.”

She finally closed the book, but kept it clutched in her hand. “An ‘important meeting,’ you said.”

“I said ‘very important meeting,’ to be precise.” Gaspard rolled half up on his side so he could look more directly at the object of his conquest. A line of sand pressed into the edge of his belly where it had escaped the confines of the beach towel. He brushed it off with sausage fingers. Two gold rings caught the sunlight. “No point in beating around the bush—”

“Or wasting time,” the young woman said.

“Quite,” Gaspard said. “I am already rich, but this meeting will make me richer, I dare say, than anyone you have ever met.” He leaned forward, looking back and forth from the sea to the cliffs before lowering his voice. “My meeting is with the Russians.”

“The Russians?” the young woman said, wide-eyed, mocking him just a little. “All of them.”

“You are quite the forward girl,” Gaspard said.

She smiled playfully. “No point in beating around the bush.”

She scooted across the sand on her knees, extending her free hand.

“I am Lucile,” she said.

Gaspard brightened. “A magnificent French name!” Still on his side, belly and chest sagging toward the beach, he took her hand and kissed it. “I am Hugo. Encantado.”

“I thought you were French?”

“When in Rome,” Gaspard said. “Or Lisbon…”

Gaspard’s bodyguards perked up. Farrin, especially, grew apoplectic about anything or anyone who got between him and his boss, but Gaspard waved them away. He’d warned them as soon as he’d seen the woman — targeted her, really — that he wanted space, ordering them to keep watch from a comfortable distance of at least twenty meters away. Having bodyguards showed everyone he was rich. Bodyguards who treated him as if he might shatter at any moment only made him look frightened, weak. It was a delicate balance.

Lucile was close enough to smell now, earthy, Gaspard thought, like warm rain.

“You are visiting Portugal?” Gaspard said.

“Small talk?” Lucile said. “I thought we were dispensing with such things.”

“Touché,” Gaspard said.

“Are you well and truly rich?”

The Frenchman smiled. “More money than you could possibly imagine.”

“Oh.” Lucile scrunched her freckled nose. “When it comes to money, I can imagine quite a lot. Do you really want oil on your back?”

“I do indeed,” Gaspard said.

“And you will buy me dinner?”

“Indeed.”

She leaned toward her bag. “I have some oil here—”

Gaspard grabbed her by the toes — tan things, painted pink — and thought that his reflexes were still very good. “You must use my oil,” he said. Farrin marched over an instant later, shoving a plastic bottle of suntan oil at the woman. It was greasy from recent use.

“Thank you,” Gaspard said to Farrin. “Now go away.” He released the woman’s foot and let his face fall forward, toward the towel. He turned slightly toward Lucile, words muffled. “I know it may be difficult for you to comprehend, but it is possible to kill someone with poisoned suntan oil.” He raised wildly overgrown eyebrows up and down. “The process will be easier if you straddle me.”

“Are you being serious?” Lucile knelt beside him. “Poisoned suntan oil?”

He wallowed deeper into the sand, head on his hands again, squinting into the sun. “There are people who do not like me very much.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” the young woman said. She threw her leg across his rump, climbing aboard to pour a line of oil onto the leathery folds below Hugo Gaspard’s hairy shoulder blades.

The book lay in the sand beside her right knee — within immediate reach.

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