Carla’s Prince

She bit her lip and pushed her hair back.

“I made you uncomfortable when I touched your hand and for that I am sorry.”

Carla shook her head.

“No, you didn’t.”

“Carla Gibson, you would be the worst player at a cards table,” he said, smiling and she shook her head.

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a tell. A pretty obvious one at that.” He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. “You put your hand over your chest every so often when you get uncomfortable. It is almost as if you are trying to be a manual pacemaker for your heart and then there is the way you bite your lower lip when you don’t know what to say.”

She shook her head.

“I do that?” she asked. She had never realized that about herself until that very moment.

“You do.”

“Guess it is a good thing I turned down my friends’ invite to Atlantic City last weekend,” she said and he laughed.

“You would have lost every hand you played.”

She reached for her glass and took a long sip of her water.

“Do you always do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Read people like some kind of secret agent?”

He laughed.

“When you grow up schooled in politics, you kind of get schooled in other areas you never expected,” he explained.

“Like non-verbal cues?” she asked.

“Especially non-verbal cues. According to my grandfather, non-verbal cues got him through a lot of diplomatic meetings.”

She shook her head and giggled.

“I’m surprised,” Cristoff admitted. “For a PI, I thought you would be really good at this.”

“The funny thing is that I am great at picking up other people’s non-verbal cues. I just never realized I had some of my own,” she said and he raised an eyebrow over the other.

“Really?”

“Well, I knew I had them but I guess I never hang out around someone long enough for them to know what they are,” she said in a soft voice.

“I learned them in under four days,” he said matter of factly.

“Well, that should tell you a lot about how I relate with people, huh?”

“Yes, and I must say, it’s worrying,” he said.

And just like that, Carla was once again, relaxed. Everything about that awkward hand touching had disappeared and by the time she got to the office, she had almost forgotten everything about it.

She was having her salmon nicoise when Thomas walked in.

“Didn’t you just come from a work lunch or something?” he asked and she shrugged.

“I did not get to eat at the restaurant. We had too much to go through,” she lied.

“Did you at least sort out the security?” he asked and she nodded.

“Yes. I will just arrange for when I can go over and check out the footage. See if the bait is attractive enough and everything.”

“Good. Keep me posted,” Thomas said as he walked into his office.

Carla wanted to tell him that she had actually kept him updated. If only he had checked his email more often, he would have known as much.

“Sometimes, I wonder what you would do if I was not here,” she thought as she took another bite of her food.

“By the way since we already have an ongoing contract with Cristoff, I am going to be staking out the Benedict property,” Thomas said as he walked back to where she was.

“What?” she raised an eyebrow over the other. “Why?”

“To see if I am going to catch anyone carrying stuff out.”

She nodded.

“Oh, that is actually great,” she said wondering how she had not thought of that in the first place.

“I’ll be in my office if you need anything,” he said and walked back into his office leaving Carla there wondering if she had somehow overlooked a few things in her current job. It was almost like she had been so preoccupied with Cristoff that she had forgotten on how she was supposed to do her job in the first place. She rubbed her temple and sighed.

“This is so fu*ked up,” she thought to herself. “Super, super fu*ked up.”