I Should Die

actually smell fine,” he says, grinning. “Eau de river water’s more like it.”
    “Do I have time for a shower?” I ask, pulling him closer until his face is inches from mine.
    “A little,” he responds.
    “How much time?” I ask.
    He swallows. “Enough for a shower. Not enough to do what you’re thinking about,” he responds hoarsely.
    “Ten minutes,” I say. “Let’s just take ten minutes.”
    He glances at my lips and presses his eyes shut. When he opens them, his expression is one of longing. “Kate, I don’t want ten minutes. Ten minutes isn’t enough. I want days. If we start something now, I’m not going to want to stop. They’ll have to drag me out of your bed to go to war.”
    “A kiss, then?” Before I can finish asking, his lips are pressed to mine. I hold his head in my hands and kiss him like I’ve been longing to.
    I lose sense of myself. I lose track of time. All that exists are me and Vincent and the experience of loving each other.
    Eyes closed, forfeiting vision to increase sense of touch. Eyes open, staring into wells of blue flecked with gold. Eyes closed, the pressure of his mouth against mine consuming me. Eyes open, watching his lids narrow with desire. Eyes closed, feeling his body hard against mine. Knowing that time is not ours today, and wondering if it ever will be.
     
    As my bathtub fills with hot water, I fold my arms across my chest, hugging myself as I wander the circumference of the bedroom Vincent has appointed for me. I peer at the collection of precious objects and admire the paintings until I start seeing a pattern.
    A painting of the Pont des Arts. A tiny red wooden rowboat set on a bookshelf next to a crystal Eiffel Tower. A pair of antique opera glasses. A vintage postcard from Villefranche-sur-Mer. A matchbook from the restaurant where we ate brunch in New York.
    I near a small cubist painting hanging near the window, about the size of a hardcover book. I lean in to admire the tiny refracted scene of a glass sitting on a café table, and when I see the signature, I inhale so sharply that it sends me into a coughing fit: Vincent hung a Picasso in my bedroom.
    And then I reach the antique footed bathtub and notice for the first time that there is an enormous vase stuffed with branches of white flowers standing on the floor beside it. And my brain suddenly registers the delicious perfume I’ve been smelling ever since I walked into the room: It is lilac.

FORTY-TWO
    “I HEAR WHAT YOU’RE SAYING, BUT I DON’T agree,” Charlotte says.
    Vincent cuts in. “According to our sources, dozens of numa have arrived in Paris over the last twenty-four hours. We have no idea where they’re assembling. Our raids on Jean-Baptiste’s rental properties two days ago succeeded in taking out eight numa. But that small victory cost us, since they immediately evacuated his other apartments. Now we have no idea where to find them. So if anyone has a productive suggestion”—he eyes Charlotte, who holds her hands up in surrender—“please feel free to voice it.”
    I can’t focus. I have been feeling progressively stronger as the hours pass, and the last thing my body wants to do right now is sit through a long meeting. I’m actually kind of craving a jog around the neighborhood. Which is pretty strange for me.
    My eyes stray to the library’s window while Vincent and the others pore over a map of Paris spread across a table. I can’t help strategize anyway. I don’t know anything about Paris’s numa or where they’ve been spotted. After trying to be interested for a half hour, my brain gives up and I let my thoughts wander.
    I notice Ambrose sitting to one side, obviously as distracted as me. But his gaze isn’t out the window. Geneviève sits just across the table from us, as alluring as the day I first saw her with Vincent in La Palette: long platinum blond hair, eyes so light they are almost gray.
    I look back at Ambrose and follow his line of sight back to the object of his attention: not Geneviève but Charlotte, with her long wheat-blond hair and rosebud cheeks. She bites her lip as she draws a line on the map from one mark to another. And I see him flinch as she glances up at him and then, with equal attention, at each person around the table as she explains the strategy.
    I walk over to sit next to him. “You look kind of distracted, Ambrose,” I whisper.
    “Yeah, well, I’m not much into planning. I’m mainly here for the muscle,” he