The Single Lady Spy Series Boxset

by Tara Brown

  “Yeah.” I cringed. “But I was faithful to one person. I never imagined I would actually get anything.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Your one person was James. You’re lucky you don't have HIV. He is hep-seedy.”

  “Was.”

  “Is.” Luce scoffed. “I am not counting that man as dead yet. Hell no. I have seen the horror movies, and that mutha always lives and comes back, just when you think it’s safe. Hell no. I’m ready for his ass.”

  “Good call.” I bit my lip and thought about it all for a moment. She had scars in places from his attempt to kill her in Rome. I didn't blame her one bit. “Ya know, I never worried about sex with him because he always wore a condom with me. He had lasting problems.”

  “Oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “That's why he always wore condoms?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Gross and lame.” She looked back at the magazine. “He was shit in bed with or without the condom anyway.”

  “Yeah.” Tapping my finger against the chair, I tried to avoid the awkwardness of the fact that we’d both slept with my ex-husband. “He was indeed.”

  “It's really no wonder you and Servario have more sex than is normal for anyone to have with an arms dealer. You have a decade of bad sex to make up for.”

  “Yup.” I nodded again, not wanting to touch on it.

  “Coop and Jack get back tonight.” Luce glanced my way.

  Her words made me realize I had a tremendous amount of guilt over Dubai, regardless of remembering nothing. There was no denying I’d had sex. I could tell.

  “You need to end things with Coop. He’s way too into you, and you’re way too hung up on Servario. It’s kinda sick to watch.”

  I didn't answer her. The idea of breaking things off permanently hurt. Coop wouldn't be able to transfer away from me so we would be stuck together, back to our awkward attraction. And he made me feel safe. It was selfish and I knew it and I hated myself for it, but I didn't want it to end.

  I pinned it in my mind to reevaluate later.

  A woman in a short red dress walked into the waiting room and sat across from me. Something about her was familiar but I couldn't recall what.

  Obviously, she was a hooker. I portrayed a hooker a lot, and we both had brown hair. Beyond that I didn't know why seeing her was picking at me.

  She was pretty, but her teeth were obviously decayed from drugs and she had a pick wound similar to the one the female Burrow agent Elise had.

  It dawned on me after a moment that the hooker’s red dress reminded me of the dress on the plane with Servario.

  I had worn a red dress.

  Had something happened to cast Servario in a bad light so he’d made me forget it? A red dress like a hooker and no memories was a bad thing.

  “Angela Marshall?” The nurse came into the room and spoke softly. Luce nudged me. “That's you, Angela.”

  I jumped up, nervous and hating the distracted feeling I had. “I’m Angela.” I followed the smiling nurse to the back hallway.

  She didn't speak until we were in the room, and even then, it was detached and devoid of emotion, “Hello, Angela. I am Sarah, one of the health nurses here. I understand you need a physical and an STI test.”

  “No.” I cocked an eyebrow. “STD.”

  She offered the most patronizing smile I had ever received. “STI is what they are labeled now.”

  I wanted to stab her in the eye but I shrugged. “Whatever they’re called, I need a test.”

  She sat back, folding her arms. “Have you changed partners?”

  “No, my husband cheated on me with a bunch of other women, and I need to be sure he didn't give me something.”

  “Oh.” Her jaw dropped and suddenly she was a completely different woman. “Oh my God, I am so sorry. Of course, we’ll make certain you’re healthy.” She shook her head. “I get this a lot I’m afraid.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Let’s just do the blood work first. It’s the easy part.” She got up and brought back the kit to take my blood. “Are you from here?”

  “No, Washington. My husband and I came here for his job.”

  “Wow.” She lifted her gaze as she washed my arm and gently stuck the needle in. “So he moved you here, away from your friends and family, and then had a series of affairs?”

  I nodded.

  “That's disgusting.”

  “It is.” I shuddered as she clamped on the vile and began filling.

  “Will you go back?”

  “No. My kids like it here.” I shrugged. “I don't mind it either. I’ve got some friends, and Canadians are such nice people.”

  “I suppose.” She filled the last vile she needed, pulled the needle from my arm, and placed a small round Band-Aid over the spot. She gestured to the bed. “Slip the gown on and lie back on the bed, covering yourself with the sheet, and I will be right back.” She got up and left the room.

  Never had I had a more gentle blood-taking experience. The Pap would be the same. I had won her over with my sob story. She was going to warm that dirty duckbill before she lodged it in me. That really was the part of the story that mattered where Pap smears were concerned. Especially when you had a crooked cervix, and every time was like the doctor trying to fish the last pickle from the jar.

  When she came back in, she offered a pleasant nod. “Ready?”

  I winced but gave her a look of accepting my fate. “Yup.” It was a lie.

  No one liked having a Pap, but I had seen the same doctor for fifteen years. We had a rapport and a friendship that involved him telling me about the White Sox and me pretending to really care about the games and stats.

  "My cervix is crooked," I offered uneasily, realizing she was akin to a new lover, minus the scotch and sexual tension.

  "They all are." She positioned herself and began the awkward part of placing my feet in the stirrups. “Could you just slide forward a bit more?” I shifted down the sheet, dragging it with me and unintentionally lifting my dress. “Always a bit awkward, eh? Like doing it in high school, you’re both a bit nervous and neither of you has a real clue how it’s meant to feel.”

  And apparently, she was going to talk about sex while touching my vagina.

  Not something my other doctor would have ever done.

  We both laughed but my heart wasn’t in it. It was a pity laugh. Self-pity.

  “I am going to touch you now.” She leaned in, making me grateful I had washed three times before we came but instantly feeling dirty the moment she went in for the kill. Being spread open under a bright light while someone wore mining gear was one thing, but having them lean in and really pry as they dug about was another. “And everything looks good. I’m adding the speculum now.” She was clearly as excited about this part as I was.

  The slightly warmed metal touched me, making me tighten. “Just relax,” she murmured.

  With a sigh, I tried to calm myself as she went in, wrestling with it. I inhaled sharply as she clicked the piece of equipment and moved until she peered up at me from between my thighs. “You really do have a crooked vagina. You must have had a terrible time giving birth.”

  I nodded tensely.

  “There, got it! Next time you get one of these, tell the doctor your cervix is to the right and back a bit.” She sighed and began the last of it. As she withdrew the speculum, I breathed a hearty sigh of relief. “Not worth it for women to sleep around or have multiple partners. We suffer too much for that shit, eh?”

  “Not worth it at all,” I agreed. Her sentence and the discomfort in my womb sealed something for me. It was the large and brutal dose of reality I needed.

  I was a mom, a daughter, a widow, and an agent. I didn't need to worry about my heart getting broken; I needed to worry about my vagina getting sick. And what I could possibly bring home from one of Servario’s weekends. There was a possibility he’d blocked my memories of Dubai because of something we did. And likely it was something I didn't want to do.

&nbs
p; I needed to worry less about dating and sex and more about my kids and saving the world.

  I needed to take men off the table, completely.

  2

  A week ago

  Sitting up, gasping for air, I paused and waited for the world to end.

  Surely my visions were prophetic and everything around me was about to burst. My fingers clutched the sheets, pulling them back as my eyes focused and I realized I was in my room at home. I didn't need to run down the hall, wheezing through smoke and debris to find my children.

  I blinked again, the sensation of being in Dubai or Helsinki fading like mist in the sun.

  The many trips and lives ended in the past few months had started to blend. For each one, a drop of my soul landed in a bucket with a hollow sound, not the splash I expected. I was unsure where the pieces of me were going, but I sensed them sloughing off.

  There in the dark, the holes they made were even more evident.

  At the rate we were killing and destroying, there would be nothing left of me. Old Evie would be a distant memory, a fond one. The bumbling mother of two with a messy bun and stretchy pants was slowly being forgotten.

  I blinked again and the remnants of the dream cleared enough for me to confirm I really was in Canada, leaving for Dubai tomorrow on a mission with CI, and the smell in the air was Coop. I turned, not seeing him in the bed but smelling him there nonetheless.

  The moon in the middle of the sky cast shadows of silver light about the room. I brushed away cold sweat from my forehead before sliding off the bed and sauntering down the hall.

  There was nothing casual in the middle of the night anymore. I glanced around corners and listened, paranoid of the things that lurked in those silver shadows.

  Perhaps killing, running, and hiding was a habit that once formed was impossible to be rid of. Like riding a bike, only the bike was on fire and you were being chased by killer clowns.

  The entire top floor of the house was bedrooms, five of them. One for me, the kids each had their own, one for my mom, and one for Fitz. The main floor was the living area with a kitchen, dining room, living room, and all the space a large family needed. The basement was where the rec room and theatre room were and also where Coop, Luce, and Jack slept. When Coop didn't end up in my bed.

  In the wide windows of the living room I found him. Coop. He was sitting, wrapped in a blanket and staring at the cold night. I didn't speak. I didn't need to.

  He knew I was there. His breathing changed ever so slightly.

  In the light of the moon and the dark of the night he was stunning, even though the silver light made his features sharper.

  I walked straight to him and nestled in, taking some of the blanket to cover my tank top and shorts.

  In the silence of the room we mentally exchanged blows, still fighting about the one thing—one person—we couldn't avoid fighting about. I leaned against him, offering silent apologies and wishing he would understand my stance on the whole Servario thing. But he remained rigid and stoic, unbending on the entire affair that had never been anything more than an affair. It would never be anything but an affair.

  “I hate that I put you in his arms. I made you go to him.” He whispered it, but it felt like he had screamed in my face. “I can see how much you love him.”

  There were lies lingering on my tongue, ones that wished they could spare Coop from the pain of my feelings for Servario. But I didn't bother to insult his intelligence with them. I sat, silent and guilty for a moment, the weight of a million tons crushing my heart in my chest. It was made of self-loathing.

  How had I been so foolish to fall for someone so toxic and distant? The answer was easy. If you met him, you understood it. Even Luce had high fived me for the entirety of it.

  “I asked you to do all those things and I can’t forgive either of us.” He got up, leaving us. The blanket, me, and the weight.

  In my heart of hearts, I knew the solution. It scared the hell out of me, but I knew what to do. Instead of doing it, I put a pin in it and got up, following him to the kitchen. I wrapped my arms around his broad body, nestling my head in the middle of his back. “Did you have sex with people before we met?”

  “Yeah.” He was curt.

  “Did you have sex with anyone after we met?”

  He paused. “I did.”

  “And do you think you owe me an explanation about any of them?”

  “But you still love him, he’s in our present.”

  “No. I have feelings for him, but they are dying off in differing ways every day."

  “Clearly.” He snorted.

  “Can’t we just be friends, slowly building something or just being in the moment to see where this goes?” It was the thing he dreaded the most. He wanted to talk about the future. He wanted commitment. He was a keener. He was also a child who had never been married and never had kids, and likely wanted both of those things. Neither was an option for me.

  The problem with being spies lying to one another was that the truth was more obvious to us both. But he smiled softly, lowering his face on mine and caressing my lips with his. The kiss never moved past soft and withheld. It was a classic representation of our feelings for one another. Everything was always held back just a little bit. He worried I wasn't ready to start something serious, and I worried he was too young to take on my brand of serious. Not to mention we worked together.

  Refusing to be these people, I switched it off—my heart, my feelings, and my sorrow. I forced an effort and a response, climbing him like a tree and wrapping my legs around his waist.

  His grip became savage, no longer holding back or subtle. It was angry and vicious. It was exactly the response I needed. He tore at my shirt, his fingers ripping and plying until we were in the kitchen and I was naked on the counter. He didn't wait for me to agree. He dropped his shorts and shoved his cock inside me, forcing a gasp from my lips.

  I wasn’t prepared, and yet I had never been more ready. He grunted as he thrust, slapping our bodies against each other. He didn't kiss me. He didn't caress me. He fucked me like he hated me and I let him.

  Instead of worrying about someone seeing us, I leaned back and let him pummel me like animals did.

  His fingers would leave bruises and his anger would leave that dirty one-night-stand feeling, but as I came in convulsions and jerks, I didn't give a shit.

  He fucked me until he was limp, gasping and shuddering. He leaned over, pressing his face into mine and whispered, “You are mine, Evie.”

  His words were not his own. I’d heard them before. They made everything we had just done disgusting and filthy, but it was my shameful cloak to wear.

  I loved two men. Not equally and not wholly. But enough to torment us all.

  3

  Hello, Servario

  The dark of night made it impossible to see what Coop was thinking.

  He paced, passing by the window and casting shadows about the room. I kept my breathing even and relaxed so he wouldn't know I saw him there.

  The angry sex at home the night before hadn’t fixed our little problems. If anything, it had made them worse.

  There, in the dark room with the handsome young man pacing back and forth like a caged cat, I knew which one of us was to blame for the moment we were each wordlessly having.

  The lights of the airport in Denver shone through the blackout curtains we hadn’t closed all the way. They provided the dim glow I needed to see the doubt on his face. The doubt I required to justify my desire to end things.

  We had been playing at our secret agent—spy—lover—instant-family roles long enough for the dust to be settled. Unfortunately, the dust had been filtering out the important things, blocking us from them so we might be fooled by the lack of clarity. But there, in the dark room, I believed we both saw it for what it was. I was a single woman, desperate to fill the void my husband’s many betrayals had created. I was a single mom, even more desperate not to be parenting in the world alone. And lastly, I was a
broken woman struggling with low self-esteem that cruelly whispered I had caused my husband to stray because there was nothing desirable about me.

  Coop had healed all that.

  He loved my kids. He made me feel beautiful. He made us all feel safe.

  Something we hadn’t felt in a long time. We weren’t alone with him, none of us were. He slipped into the holes, like plaster filling them up and patching the cracks.

  And the worst part of it all, I had let him. I had let him, knowing full well what this was. It wasn't love.

  I had been selfish and greedy enough in my desire to be normal again that I had forgotten the one sacred rule about relationships. That one special thing that will always find a way: true love.

  He continued to pace, pausing in the window. His abs were flexed, making me wish I could push it all away, all the doubts and worries about us and the lack of love I feared I felt for him. The lust could be enough if I let it.

  I closed my eyes, letting myself believe that was a better option. Lust could turn to love. I would let it.

  Somehow I slept with that as a blanket, tucking me in and telling me to sleep, like my mother had when I was a girl.

  When I woke, Coop was staring at me from the chair across the room. He was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans, and ready to catch his flight to England. I rubbed my eyes, praying the stone-cold expression upon his beautiful face was caused by the sleep in my eyes. But when I blinked it remained—the awkward stillness in him from the night before with the pacing.

  “I think you should go home.” Finally, he spoke the words that had clearly kept him up all night, only they weren’t what I had expected. I’d thought he was about to tell me he didn't want to see me with Servario again, not even as a teammate.

  I raised a brow, confused and too tired to fight again about whether we should both be on a mission with the kids at home with my mother and Fitz.

  He lifted a hand, holding off the argument that brewed in my still foggy brain. “I think you should go home and try to keep some sense of normalcy. Luce and Jack are coming. We are meeting Servario in Dubai. I think you should let us take care of this.” Luce and Jack were people we trusted with our lives and those of the people we loved the most—my kids.