Six Years Ago

It was supposed to be a simple assignment, the majority of the time and effort spent on surveillancing the target and blocking out the most opportune time to break into his hotel room. Harry's participation was due to the severity of what lay in the most luxurious suite in Le Royal Monceau: a particular set of military weapons codes that would, rather than cause destruction, result in war with Russia. The primary concern of theirs was to ensure the codes were retrieved before being sold, as Aldan Sherwood was currently attempting in the restaurant below.

The mission was simple; enter the room, find the file, and leave without being noticed. Mr. Sherwood, a rather unsightly man whose entire character was defined by his greed, was inexperienced in the matter: the three men he'd hired were now unconscious in the hall and he'd brought the codes to Paris with him and left them in his room under the impression they'd be safe. It should've taken Harry no more than ten minutes from the moment he entered the building to when he departed.

However, upon entering the room he was brought short at the sight of a shamelessly nude woman lounging on the couch facing him. It was not her display of skin that caused him to falter it was her lack of concern at being found, by a stranger no less, in her current state. She sat with her elbows resting on the back of the couch exposing her breasts, her spine straightened with impeccable posture and her legs crossed, tan skin nearly glowing in the dim light against the stark white couch, dark hair pulled back revealing her lovely face, her narrow eyes trailing his body as he refused his own to do. There was no surprise at his foreign face, no quick hurry to cover herself, not even a cry for help.

Her curious gaze returned to his and she stated calmly, "you are not my lover."

From the pronunciation of her r's alone Harry knew she was French, her accent was thick her voice a low timbre of words dripping slowly from her mouth - he may as well have been smoking a cigar for the ambience was all but identical. "No madam, my deepest apologies," Harry told her, not allowing his gaze to falter. "My presence is due to the utmost importance, perhaps we can talk once you've made yourself more presentable." The moment he heard Merlin's refusal in his ear Harry removed the glasses from his face and pocketed them, not wishing to expose her without her discretion. And he was left trying not to stare wishing she'd cover herself, there was something about her nudity that left him unable to decipher any part of her.

"Am I distracting you from breaking into my room?" she asked, a small grin accompanying the playful look in her dark eyes.

The sense returned to him at the word 'my' when he was reminded it was not her room but rather a man who would be facing serious consequences, and of course the fact that she should not be there. "I do believe this is Mr. Sherwood's room, Ms…I didn't catch your name."

A rather warm look entered her serious eyes as she stood. "I know, and I did not give it," she replied stopping in front of him.

"And are you aware Mr. Sherwood is married?" he asked finally remembering to be suspicious.

"For thirteen years, unhappy," she answered letting her eyes roam again. The exquisite suit, the umbrella, the glasses – she knew exactly who he was. She returned her eyes to his face, thinking he was quite handsome.

He was no longer fooled by her heated stare, no longer a fool at the whim of a lovely woman; there was a reason he looked at her and could not tell a solitary thing about her, and somehow that was more suspicious than her being there. "Then you of course know, as well, that he is currently entertaining a guest in the dining room downstairs?" he asked getting to the point that should've tipped him off the moment he opened the door to find her.

But she smiled, the simple lifting of the right side of her mouth in a roguish manner, pricking his confidence with a pin and letting it slowly deflate. "You assume I am his mistress." She watched the bobbing of his throat as he swallowed, heard his soft 'I see' at whatever realization he'd come to. "Do you give your apologies now?" she asked seeing him almost smile at the unexpected touch of humor. "Why don't you tell me why you are here, maybe I can help?"

You can help by clothing yourself, is what he thought stepping around her to look further in the room for what he'd come for – not fully taking his eye off her, nor did she seem to want him to as she stayed always in his peripheral. "I have come for a briefcase, it would have some security measure be it code or key, would you happen to know where he stores it for safe keeping?" He allowed himself to take in her posture, without taking in the rest of her, to find no hand on her hip or slouch of her spine – she was refined, elegant. And he did not believe she was a mistress, not for a moment.

"How do I know you are no thief?" she posed with such simple reasoning he was forced to realize he very much appeared as one to an unknowing eye.

Yet he wasn't fully convinced she was unknowing, mostly due to the knowing in her eye – she still stared with open curiosity and not the slightest bit of alarm, a sense of anticipation as though she were aware of what was happening. "I can only assure you I am not, and it is in fact Mr. Sherwood who did the thieving."

She stood quietly appraising him, searching for any sign of a ploy without finding one. "How important are the documents to you?" she asked watching any doubt wilt as his face turned to stone. "Soon the person in your ear will tell you there are men coming to take the codes you want. With small time to waste I ask again, how important are the documents to you?"

"Gravely," he answered seeing then he'd been right in his inability to read her, she was quite good at playing games.

With a small nod she opened the doors to the bedroom revealing the slick black briefcase she'd set on the bed before she was interrupted by his arrival. "Are you the good guy?"

He looked at her, truly looked at this strange woman who used her naked beauty as a weapon and honestly could not make sense of her. "Of sorts," he answered. He'd barely finished speaking when Merlin's deep Scottish brogue sounded in his ear, as she'd known, to tell him a team of Russians were on their way up and they had less than thirty seconds to prepare. Taking her thin arm in hand he pulled her into the bedroom and held her to the wall. "We will continue this discussion when I am finished," he told her seriously, planning to take her with him willing or not so they might know who she was and why she'd come for the codes.

A grin sly enough to shame a fox curled on her full mouth as she pressed against him, her warm chest flush against his her nose nearly brushing his chin. "Will the discussion include removing your clothes?" she asked catching the twitch of his brow at her heavily suggestive words. And for no purpose other than to 'ensure' he wouldn't mistake her intention, which was of course not to rile him up to leave an impression, she further explained; "I would have you take me against this wall until I screamed whatever name you say was yours, mon bel homme."

And with a single sentence she'd stolen his sense once more, leaving him clutching for reasons why that shouldn't be as enticing as it seemed. It was Merlin who righted Harry's reason, warning him they had ten seconds, and he stepped away from the intoxicating woman smoothing his suit as he returned to himself. "Quite right," he said returning the glasses to his face as he made his way to the door to greet their guests.

To the sound of wood splintering as the door was kicked down and yells of fury and pain as they met the man waiting inside, she began to redress. After she'd pulled on her dress and stepped into her heels, unlocking the briefcase with the keys she'd plucked from Mr. Sherwood's pocket as she passed him in the hall, she allowed herself to watch the handsome man who had found her. He was eloquent in both speaking and manners, she didn't think he'd let his gaze stray from her face once, he was even a gentleman as he fought. She watched with enraptured awe the ease in which he took out the Russians, who'd never had a chance, the lovely flourish of his body as he moved; she could've gone on all night and she regretted deeply that she couldn't.

Disposing of the last man, Harry took the time to straighten his suit before turning to the woman who stood enticingly in the bedroom. Only the sight he was met with was the briefcase left open on the bed and an open window to his left. Against reason he checked the case hoping he hadn't let himself be played for a complete fool, and at the sight of the bare interior he made for the window hoping to find her on the ledge with the chance of coaxing her inside. But again he was left with nothing but a clue as to what she had done, half her metal bracelet encircled a decorative piece and a string of wire that'd been wound inside the bracelet ran from the window to the ground where the other half of the cuff hovered over the sidewalk gleaming in the streetlights.

"Lost her in a crowd; lass knew someone was watching."

Harry breathed a heavy sigh as he stood staring down at the streets of Paris for a woman he never learned the name of, and only had a guess as to her race because while she was clearly French her face appeared vaguely Asian. "She knows of us then," Harry said wondering how that were possible when she hadn't been faintly familiar to him.

"We don't know of her, I can tell you that," Merlin said running her face through the system a second time only to receive the same matchless results, which meant she'd kept her head down the last ten or so years – it being unlikely the computer would recognize a younger face. "How long are you staying in Paris?" he asked knowing Harry wouldn't leave without finding her again.

Be it the threat she could potentially create or his own personal desire to partake once more in her game and reign victorious, or a clouded mixture of the two, he replied; "as long as it takes."

I apparently cannot help myself when it comes to suave older men in nice suits, especially when they're gentleman spies (of sorts). The first few chapters will be in the past, developing the relationship between my character and Harry as well as fleshing her out a bit, which will give me time to rewatch the movie and plan where she'll fit into to it. I hope you have enjoyed thus far; comments, critiques, suggestions, etc, are very welcome. And thank you very much for reading.