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XXXI
G U I L T Y P L E A S U R E S
—aka, you win a winner's crown you hold with your talons the winner's crown,
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INT—A ROOM SOMEWHERE IN THE EAST WING.
PARIS, FRANCE — NIGHT.
SCENE VII.
It truly is kind of funny, my life.
I knew Joseph and I had a limited time to enact my little plan. The window of it thinning by the eyes on me, and oh, do I feel their cold glares— and him now, with the suspicion of us knowing each other hanging in the air — further and running, so I had to move accordingly.
Good for me that Joseph was well-trained enough, that when Ashley Baudelaire and her ever loyal guard dog and partner, French Interpol Agent Gabriel Moulin, burst through the door of the room I chose (a guest bedroom with nice furnishings albeit smelling of stale air and unused) with their guns drawn and and face marred in righteous wrath— all they saw is Joseph Evans stretched on a roman sofa on the foot of bed, languid and pretty, while I, ever gorgeous, was laid out on the bed, one elbow holding most of my weight in a brace.
When I turned my head to the arrival, I blew a kiss to the heavens.
"Oh," Joseph said, smirk lifting as he licks the cherry from a martini. How he had flagged a waiter from our spot in the building was a mystery to me and most. "Hello there." Joseph cocked an eyebrow at me. "I didn't realise this was a group effort."
"They don't like me very much for that, sweetie." I tilted my head at the gun drawn to my face. It was probably because holding the gun was part of the agent's work, and armed with rules and regulations, but I didn't feel at all threatened with the barrel to my face.
