Free The Ambassador's Wife by Jennifer Steil Page B

City.
    The next morning, before Miranda had even managed her first cup of coffee, “the guys” or “the team,” which was how Finn referred to his bodyguards, arrived at her gates to do a “recce.” Miranda’s fogged brain puzzled over what
recce
was short for. Reconnaissance? Was that it? Somehow that seemed an odd word to have applied to her beloved home. She panicked when she saw them at her door, worried they would search her rooms and find the paintings. But they merely knocked politely at the gate, made sure the address was correct, glanced around her courtyard, and vanished. Finn arrived several hours later.
    Turned out she needn’t have worried about the teapot. The guys stayed outside in the courtyard (and at the top of her street, the bottom of her street, and across her street. There may even have been some at a neighbor’s window).
    â€œDo you have a curfew?” Miranda asked nervously, peering out one of her tiny slot windows.
    â€œYes. I absolutely must be at the embassy by seven thirty in the morning.”
    â€œHmm,” she said, noting with a glance at her phone that it was only 5:00 p.m.
    â€œI know,” he said sadly. “It doesn’t give us much time. But I’m free Thursday too.”
    Miranda laughed. “We haven’t even sat down yet! How do you know you’ll want to see me again Thursday?”
    â€œI know,” he said simply, smiling. “I just know.”
    â€”
    S O DID SHE . She’d known since the second the pomegranate rebounded and she looked up to meet his eyes. She didn’t believe in love at first sight, but apparently you don’t have to believe in it for it to happen. The funny thing was, it wasn’t merely that kind of physical chemistry buzzy thing that had happened with so many of her previous loves, including Vícenta. It was a calmer, quieter thing, saying
not
(or rather, not
only
) “I want to throw this man down on the pavement and have my way with him” but rather “I want to be doing crossword puzzles with this man on Sunday mornings thirty years from now.” That kind of thing. On top of the buzziness.
    There was something else that set Finn apart from her previous lovers. She had chosen him. For so long she had simply allowed herself to be chosen. There had been hardly any space in between her romantic entanglements. As soon as one ended, she had always told herself that she needed time alone, needed time to be free. But it never happened. She’d be at a St. Patrick’s Day parade and suddenly find herself dancing with a firefighter in an Irish bar. Or she’d be doing volunteer work painting schools and a skinny girl with a shy smile would invite her to her art studio. People kept happening to her.
    Granted, she kept letting them in. Miranda had always been more of a why-not? kind of person than a why? kind of person. So when she met someone who was attractive, bright, kind, and slightly eccentric, she couldn’t find a reason
not
to get involved. Which was why after Vícenta left she had striven to keep herself unattached for nearly twoyears, aside from a few minor flings. Solitude, it turned out, was wonderful. She loved not having to report her whereabouts to anyone. She loved eating alone in her kitchen with a book. She loved sketching in her
diwan
over the first cup of coffee of the day. It was an entirely new kind of freedom.
    But Finn she chose. She chose him when she led him the long way through the Old City so that they’d have longer to talk. She chose him when she invited him home. She wanted to keep choosing him.
    AUGUST 9, 2010
    Finn
    Cressida is hot and restless in his arms, squirming against his thin T-shirt. She is dressed for bed, in her blue flannel pajamas and fleecy sleep sack. It still gets cold at night, especially in this vast marble-floored monstrosity of a house. Numbly, Finn had somehow managed the bath and bedtime stories.