Stolen from the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (4 page)

“
O
kay
, open your eyes!” giggles Maggie, who has led me by the arm for the past few minutes of walking, after a short cab ride. “Open and look up!”

My eyes have been shut tightly, as per her instructions, ever since we got into the cab off the Champs-Élysées. But now I slowly open them and tilt my head upward, my stomach immediately twisting into excited knots. I’m staring up at the powerful, criss-crossing metal beams of the Eiffel Tower! My mouth falls open to admit a long, awestruck exhale.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Maggie says, nudging my shoulder.

I nod, feeling like I’ve been abducted by aliens and set back down gently in some kind of fever dreamscape. How in the world did I manage to end up here, standing underneath this magnificent structure, surrounded by the sights and smells of such a legendary city?

“It’s… so much bigger than I expected,” I breathe, my chest swelling with emotion. When I was in middle school, the desktop background on my old hand-me-down laptop was a black and white photo of the Eiffel Tower. I used to close out of my homework assignments sometimes just to gaze at the picture, pretending that I was there.

And now… here I am. I swallow back the lump forming in my throat. This has to be a dream that I’m going to wake up from. Any second now my alarm clock will go off and I’ll open my eyes to see my old bedroom back in North Carolina.

“Wanna go up?” Maggie asks enthusiastically, in a way that suggests there is only one correct answer: yes, yes, yes!

“Obviously!” I laugh, leaning into her as we both grin and run for the entrance. She pays for our way in, since she’s already got her dollars converted into euro. Maggie’s been paying for me left and right today, and at first I balked, too proud to let her just buy me things. But once she explained, in a surprisingly matter-of-fact manner, that her parents are very wealthy and they’re giving her a hefty monthly stipend — I backed down. In fact, the very first stop on our miniature tour of Paris a couple hours ago was the Triangle d’Or, a fancy boutique spot. I was fully prepared to simply window shop, but Maggie marched straight in and out of Dior, Givenchy, and Chanel like she belonged there. And once I saw her drop several hundred euro on a soft black hat at Hermès on a whim, I realized that she truly
did
belong there. She wasn’t homeschooled for some religious reason or because her parents were suspicious of the educational system. It was because they spent so much time traveling the world that they required a tutor who could travel with them.

I’ve landed myself a rich, generous roommate with a bottomless pocketbook and a newfound taste for freedom. But for all her (as the French might say) bourgeois privileges, I have to give it to her; Maggie has none of the snobby condescension I’ve come to expect from what kids back home pejoratively dubbed “city slickers.” So far, she’s been incredibly open and kind to me, treating me like an equal rather than a charity case. Granted, I’ve only known her for a few hours now, but I can already tell she and I are going to become fast friends. It’s a huge relief, knowing that I’ve found at least one friend in the city. Things are definitely looking up for Liv Greenwood.

Especially now that we’re about to ascend the 704 steps of the Eiffel Tower! Wait… are we really going to walk up 704 steps right now? I know we’re both athletes, but…

“Where are you going, silly?” Maggie laughs, waving me over away from the entrance to the stairway. “We’re taking the lift!”

“Oh, thank god,” I gasp in relief. “I was about to say, you must be in way better shape than I am to wanna take the stairs!”

“No, no, training doesn’t start till tomorrow, remember? Today we’re lazy,” she giggles, pulling me into the lift alongside a group of elderly tourists arguing in Portuguese. I’ve never been around so many different languages and accents, the foreign words colliding with my own English train of thought like a calamitous wreck. But I love it. I love having my entire worldview shaken and crumbled to the ground. I can feel the pieces of my old, sheltered self falling by the wayside, stepping out of the way to make room for a new, worldly Liv. Maggie and I wriggle through the little crowd, muttering
excusez-moi
as we go.

Staring down breathlessly at the earth pulling away beneath our feet, I almost feel like I’ve left an old part of myself down there on the ground, the fresh, new version of myself ascending into the Parisian evening sky. When we reach the top, Maggie takes my hand and pulls me out onto the landing. We lean into the railing and gawk open-mouthed at the panoramic view of Paris below us, the old buildings mingling alongside the new, twinkling lights dotting the darkening air all around us in every direction.

“I can’t believe I’m really here right now,” I murmur, finally permitting the sting of elated tears in my eyes. “This is like a dream.”

“Yeah, no matter how many times I’ve been here, it always feels the same. Magical,” Maggie agrees, yanking her hair out of its ponytail, shaking it out, and pulling on her new designer hat. I turn to look at her and she smiles. I can tell she’s not used to having friends with her on these adventures. I love my parents, and I’m sure Maggie loves hers, but there’s just something so much more exciting about seeing the world without a guide. Without limits.

And that’s how it feels tonight — like there are no limits.

“What do you wanna do next?” she asks.

“Well, first I definitely wanna take a photo just to prove that I’m really here! Nobody back home will believe me, otherwise!” I say, whipping out my phone and pulling Maggie in beside me as I turn the camera toward us. We both flash our most genuinely blissful, goofy grins and I snap the photo. Paris sparkles in the background, like the city herself is smiling, too. Always ready for a photo op.

“Have you ever had a crepe with Nutella?” Maggie asks suddenly, grabbing my arm as though it’s the most important question in the world.

“What’s Nutella?” I ask, furrowing my brow. Maggie throws her hands up and squeals.

“Girl, you’re gonna find out
en ce moment
!” she replies, the French phrase rolling delicately and expertly off her tongue. For the first time, I feel the slightest dash of envy toward her. It’s not her money or her privilege that unsettles me — it’s the fact that she can speak the local language with such ease. While my high school only offered either Latin or Spanish as a half-hearted foreign language option, Maggie explained off-hand that during her lifelong travels with her parents she’s picked up French and Italian pretty fluently, and enough Spanish, German, and Russian to get by if need be.

So not only is my roommate rich, but she’s also a language savant.

Still, just like her money and familiarity with Paris are a benefit to both of us, her ability to easily communicate with the locals and read street signs are an enormous advantage. As long as I’m with her, I’ll never really be lost here.

And I’m realizing, as we race back to the lift, that I am not simply a leech in this blossoming friendship — I have something else to offer. Maggie is coming out of her shell, possibly for the first time in her life, now that she has someone to adventure with. In the few short hours we’ve spent together, she has unfolded like a morning glory under the dawn of a bright sun. When we first met on campus, she was stiff and almost cold, her words and gestures awkward. Everything about her screamed ‘fish out of water.’ But with me encouraging and reassuring her, she’s really begun to express herself.

For even though she may have felt at home waltzing in and out of designer boutiques, she was still reluctant to address a man selling pretty scarves on a street corner. She couldn’t meet the eye of the taxi driver. She apologized profusely any time she had to cross a street, even when we had the right-of-way.

But now, the two of us are skipping and laughing down the Champ de Mars, the green grass tickling our bare ankles. At my insistence, before we left the flat to embark on our citywide tour, I managed to get her into a little black dress from my own suitcase. For although Maggie has many items of designer clothing, they all fall on the hyper-conservative side. She wears the kinds of clothes one would expect of a Sunday school teacher, not a world-traveler with a perfected French accent. So with much coaching, she put on my black dress, and I slipped into a white, lacy frock. The pair of us look like we belong in a hipster photo shoot, but I think we pull it off swimmingly.

We find a crepe vendor on the edge of the green, and Maggie buys us both banana-Nutella crepes and a giant bottle of water. Then we settle down on the grass, staring up at the starry sky. The crepe is spectacular! Chocolatey, nutty, and just oh so light and delicious! And the evening? It’s amazing to me that we can still see the stars, faintly illuminated beyond the fuzzy glow of city lights. Back home, everyone always says that city people never get to see the stars. But sitting here now, I realize how very wrong they are. I’m catching onto the fact that they may be wrong about a lot of things about the world. I know there must be danger lurking somewhere in the shadows of the city, but right now all I can see is the shining light.

“This is gonna be so awesome,” Maggie gushes, wiping the chocolatey smudge from her lips with a pink napkin. “I was so nervous about coming here and being without my parents. I’ve never really done anything on my own before and I was so scared that I’d get a roommate who hated me. You always hear horror stories about college roommates, you know. But you and I… we’re gonna have so much fun, I think.”

“We are,” I agree, smiling at her.

“So, what’s next?” she chirps happily, leaning back and starting to idly braid her hair over one shoulder. I shrug and take another bite of my delicious crepe, thinking hard. I don’t really know what all there is to do in Paris. I mean, I’m sure there’s a lot — but I wouldn’t have the slightest idea where to begin.

“Well, it’s your city, Maggie! What do
you
wanna do next?” I shoot back, winking. She looks positively intimidated to have been given the reins yet again. She’s clearly not accustomed to being in control. I get the sense that, just like I’ve spent most of my life trailing after my parents who are in their own little world, Maggie has been her parents’ silent shadow for a long time.

“Hmm,” she begins thoughtfully, chewing her lip. “Well, we are both eighteen now… so we could do something
bad
.”

I have to snort at the way she says “bad.” She sounds like a little kid suggesting that we raid her mother’s cookie jar or something.

“Uh, like what?” I press her. She blushes.

“We could go to a bar or something,” she suggests, so quietly I have to strain to comprehend her words.

“Don’t we have to be twenty-one to drink?” I ask, confused.

She shakes her head, blinking at me in shock. “No, Liv. The drinking age in France is eighteen. We’re both old enough to buy alcohol.”

“What?” I gasp in full disbelief. I can’t believe how much of an idiot I am for not knowing this. I feel like such a stereotypical dumb American, assuming the laws are the same as they are back home. Except back in Toast, drinking at any age is severely frowned upon. That’s one of the many downsides to living in a formerly dry county. A lot of the stigma remains.

“I’ve only had a few sips of wine with my parents, though. Ever,” Maggie admits, looking ashamed of herself.

“I’ve never had alcohol except for… well, this boy on the flight over here gave me a little bit of his champagne,” I tell her, the whole awkward scene with Will jumping back into my mind.

“Ooh! Was he cute?” she asks, wiggling closer and resting her chin on her hands.

“Uh, yeah. He was alright,” I say, downplaying how cute he really was. Sure, he’s cute, but he crossed a line when he tried to kiss me. Didn’t he? Now that I’m sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, sucking the intoxicatingly mystical air of a Parisian evening into my lungs… I wonder if maybe I overreacted. Perhaps I was the one who got it wrong. Maybe that’s just the way things happen here — all of a sudden, with no warning and no real reason or rhyme beyond the fact that it feels good at the time. Back home, most of my friends hardly even held hands until the third or fourth date. But maybe here in Paris, it wasn’t unusual to kiss an almost-stranger.

Maybe Will deserved a second chance.

But, I realize with a sinking heart, I never gave him my number, nor did I get his. I simply ran away before I could really take full stock of the situation. Maybe he was really a nice guy who simply liked me and wanted to show it with a sweet gesture, and I just slammed the door in his face. Suddenly, I feel incredibly rude and cruel. And foolish.

Just then, as though summoned by some spirit of kismet, my phone screen lights up to indicate a new email. It’s a weird time of evening to get a school message, but I open my email just the same… and see that it’s not a message from the university address, nor from Pavlenko.

It reads:

Bonjour Olivia!

Found your email address in a student registrar online, since I didn’t catch your number in time before you left this morning. Hope I didn’t freak you out too badly. Sorry if I was being too forward. I just got swept up in the moment, I guess. Anyway, if you’re feeling up to it, there’s a big party happening tonight in the 11th arrondissement. We’re meeting up at Zero-Zero on Rue Amelot in an hour if you want to join. I want to make it up to you for overstepping boundaries today. Please let me show you a good time. I promise not to kiss you… unless you want me to.

À bientôt!

- Will

“Oh my god, speak of the devil,” I murmur, staring in shock at my phone screen.

“Who is it?” Maggie asks, peering over my arm. I look up at her, biting my lip.

“It’s the guy from the plane,” I say flatly. “And he wants me to go to a party tonight.”

“Ahh! Liv, you have to go! Can I come with you? Please, please, please!” she gasps, wiggling up and down excitedly. Gone is the nervous, fidgety girl of this afternoon. I raise an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t know, Maggie. They’re meeting up at a bar… I’ve never really been a part of that scene, you know,” I wheedled, my stomach turning anxiously. The logical, sensible part of my brain is urging me to ignore the email and just go home since I have to be up early tomorrow for my first day of training.