Cannes Cutaway

One turn under the carpet lights and the gown opens. One bad move and it cuts her.

“Caron wants me humiliated,” Léa says.

“He wants every eye on you while his next move lands.” I pass the dress to a gloved tech. “You are not walking the carpet.”

“No.”

“Léa.”

“You have a threat against me, a wrecked dress, and six hundred cameras waiting outside. Taking me away gives him exactly what he paid for.”

“Then give me an option I can protect.”

Her attention cuts to the garment case, then the charcoal tuxedo we packed for the after-party. “Inner lane. No fan line. Three minutes. Then a clean exit.”

“Done.”

At 18:31, she steps onto the carpet in charcoal silk and diamonds, looking like she planned the change herself. Cameras erupt. I keep her moving, count every credential, track the barriers.

Then steel shrieks.

A woman in a press bib kicks loose a barricade pin and shouts that Léa is coming to sign. The front rows shove forward. The barrier bows. People stumble into one another, phones raised, security pushed sideways by bodies that do not care who gets hurt.

The woman turns toward us.

Same red braid. Same face from the fitting room.

I grab Léa at the waist and steer her toward the service door. The attacker cuts through the crush with a compact metal torch raised in her fist.

I get between them.

The blow glances off my forearm. I drive my shoulder into her center and put her against the concrete wall before she can swing again. Two officers take her down. Her forged pass catches on my cuff as I pull Léa through the service corridor.

“Move,” I tell the team.

Nobody argues.

By the time the van climbs toward the hilltop villa, my hands have stopped shaking from anger and started shaking from what nearly happened.

Bastien sits beside me, his jacket torn at the sleeve, a red mark rising along his forearm. Odette works three phones at once from the front seat.

“The pass data came through,” she says. “Asterion Security generated the template.”

I know the name. It appears in Cutaway beside invoices, shell companies, and Caron’s preferred methods for making frightened people disappear from contracts without ever vanishing physically.

“Caron’s contractor,” I say.

Bastien’s jaw sets. “Which means the hotel is burned, the Palais is burned, and we use the safe house until I know who else they placed.”

The villa waits above Cannes, white walls behind locked gates, the city glittering far below as if none of this can reach it. Inside, Odette takes calls in the study. Bastien checks windows, alarms, doors, then returns to the kitchen where I am waiting.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It is not nothing because you say it in that tone.”

For once, he almost laughs. Almost.

I step close. “You put yourself in front of her.”

“In front of you.”

“Yes. That.”

His hand rises to my cheek. He stops just before his mouth reaches mine. Everything in me says close the last few centimeters. I could. He would let me.

“I want this,” I tell him. “Not because I am scared. Because I am not.”

“I know, ma belle.” His eyes hold mine. “I want it too.”

“Then why are you stepping back?”

“Because Caron still has people inside our perimeter. Because I am still responsible for keeping you alive.” He lowers his hand. “And because when I kiss you, I refuse to do it while part of me is listening for a door to break.”

The retreat lands harder than the attack did.

“My choice remains mine,” I say.

“It does.” His face softens. “So does mine. Tonight, mine is to keep the line.”

He turns toward the encrypted case on the counter, where the documentary drives wait under a hard black lid.

“Come on,” he says. “We have work to do.”

I follow him because work is safer than thinking about the few centimeters he denied both of us.

The encrypted case opens beneath the kitchen lights. Bastien lays out a hardened laptop, two satellite phones, three black drives, and a folded map of the property. Odette crosses from the study long enough to hand me coffee and a schedule.

“At midnight, the press package goes to investigators and the outlets we vetted,” she says. “At twelve-ten, if anyone tries to block it, the public link opens.”

“Controlled detonation,” I say.

“Professional term is contingency release.”

“Mine is better.”

Bastien keys in a long string of numbers. “Your face stays out of the metadata. No location tags. No live connection until the packages are ready.”

“My face is the point.”

“Your location is not.”

I should hate that answer. Instead, I drag a chair beside his and open the ledger Amira built. The figures look dull until you understand what Caron did with them: fake consulting fees, disappearing crews, companies that bloom for one project and fold before anyone can ask a question.

I record my introduction for the release, clean and sharp enough to survive bad Wi-Fi and worse men.

At the second take, Bastien reaches across me for the audio cable. His sleeve rises, showing the scrape along his forearm, red against his skin.

“Sit still,” I tell him.

“I am sitting.”

“Then stop pretending you are indestructible.”

I find the first-aid kit before he can object. He watches me clean the scrape while I wrap gauze around it.

“You do this often?” he asks.

“Bandage men who get hit for me? New career path.”

His mouth shifts, nearly a smile. “It was my job.”

“That distinction is losing the argument.”

By one fifteen, we have three encrypted packages, a legal memo, Amira’s source statement, and a shortened version of the film ready for release if the premiere disappears. My knee meets Bastien’s beneath the counter. Neither of us moves away.

Every contact tonight has become a dare.

Léa picks apart the release schedule with the same speed she uses to dismantle a lazy question on live television. She spots the missing invoice chain before Odette does and redirects one package to a financial crimes unit that can move before dawn.

She is not reckless. She is precise. The difference matters.

At one forty-two, she closes the laptop and turns toward me.

“Bastien.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

I do.

“When you stopped in the kitchen, you said you wanted this.” Her chin lifts. “Was that true?”

“Yes.”

“Not an assignment answer.” Her eyes hold mine without wavering. “Do you want me apart from the job? Apart from what happened outside? Apart from the fact that I am currently in a guarded house with the man paid to keep me alive?”

There is no safe answer, only an honest one.

“Yes,” I say. “If Caron had never sent a note, if you were not my client, if every camera in Cannes forgot your name tomorrow, I would still want you.”

Her face changes. Not softer. More certain.

“Then say the rest.”

“You can stop this at any point. I stop immediately. You do not have to explain why.”

“And you?”

“I can stop too.”

“Can you ask instead of deciding for me?”

“Yes.”

“Can I change my mind?”

“At every second.”

She holds my stare for another moment, making sure I mean every word.

“Then I choose this.”

Before I touch her, I call Odette. She takes primary command without asking questions, confirms two officers at the gate, and keeps every alarm, camera, and perimeter sensor on her tablet. I tell the team that Léa has privacy, not reduced protection.

Then I put my earpiece beside the laptop.

When I turn back, Léa is still waiting.

“May I kiss you?” I ask.

“Yes.”

I cross the kitchen slowly enough that she can change her mind, then put one hand at her waist and take her mouth with mine. She meets me halfway, fierce and immediate, her hands gripping my shirtfront as if she has been waiting all night to prove I am not the only one with discipline.

The kiss deepens. I feel her smile against my mouth, cocky even now, and I almost lose control right there beside the drives that could ruin Rémi Caron.

Instead, I pull back.

“Bedroom,” I say.

“Good call.”

She takes my hand and leads me down the hall.

That matters. I follow.

In the bedroom, Léa turns and lifts her silk top over her head. Her skin catches the low lamplight. She is beautiful, but that is the least dangerous thing about her.

“May I?” I ask again.

“Yes, Bastien.”

I undo the fastening at her trousers and slide them down her legs. My hands travel over her hips, her ribs, the curve of her breast. When I roll one nipple between my thumb and forefinger, she closes her eyes and lets out my name like an order.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You lower.”

I drop to my knees.