Dropping Like Spies - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Twenty

THINGS OF WHICH I WAS ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN ONCE WE ARRIVED AT THE AMBASSADORS’ BALL

- Romania is breathtakingly gorgeous, even, and perhaps especially, at night.

- My legend’s name was Anna Alexander, Countess of Adria and daughter of the Adrian Ambassador to Romania.

- Luke Collins does not look tragically horrendous in a suit.

- My bra was really, really strapless.

- My dress was also very strapless.  And form fitting.  And black.  Oh, and it had a slit up the side—a slit!

- The next time I saw him, I was going to kill Matthew Goode.

Sibiu’s buildings seem to grow straight from the ground.  Every time we passed a building, it felt like I was watching a living, breathing thing that came straight from the grass, carved from the very stone it sat upon.  This ballroom was no different, ivy colored pillars rising up above everything else in that towering room.  Massive, bricked walls and smooth wooden banisters that ran along the second floor balcony.  Wealthy golds and rich reds dripping and draping from every available surface—crystal shimmering every time I turned my head.  The spy in me was scanning balconies and plotting escape routes, but the girl in me, god help her, was swooning.  Until then, I’d never known that it was possible to fall in love with a place.

It looked like the Gallagher Academy, but amped to the nth degree.  As I looked down across the crowds, made up of plump old men and bored teenagers, I remembered my prom night at Blackthorne.  I had always known that my schools were the foremost in operative development, but until then, I had never really appreciated just how spot-on the curriculum really was.

I found myself wishing that I could stand at the top of that plush staircase for the entire night, looking down upon all of the potential threats.  It was the ideal post—not a single blind spot.  Next to me, I heard Collins let out the smallest sigh and I was fairly certain that he was thinking the same thing.

But, alas, the dance was a floor below and there was a mission afoot.  We had some serious distracting to do, although if I’m being honest, it felt like I was doing plenty of distracting from where I was.  I felt eyes on me—too many pairs of eyes.  It seemed like everywhere I looked, someone had turned to watch the girl in the black dress make her decent.  “Smile,” Collins reminded me, holding his arm out for me to take.  “I think someone might be watching you.”

I wrapped my hand around his sleeve and couldn’t help notice the fact that Collins was probably far too fit to pass for the nephew-in-law of an American ambassador.  “By ‘someone’ do you mean half of Romania?” I asked through a smile that would have made even Miss America jealous.   “Because I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to run an op here again without someone recognizing me.”

“Don’t worry, Goode,” he said, taking the first steps down that grand staircase.  My heels sunk into crimson, making me wish that I had worn my tennis shoes.  “You’re barely recognizable in this get-up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked, not daring to let my smile fall.  An old man wearing tinged gloves waved as if he knew me, so I graciously returned the gesture.  I was surprised by how often Madame Baudin’s lessons rang through my head and how few times I heard Professor Woods.

“It means,” he said, taking that final carpeted step and landing with confidence on the stone below.  He turned to face me, trapping me there at the end of the staircase, and I was almost as tall as he was just then.  “That you would never wear this if it weren’t for the mission.”