by Juno Rushdan
Gideon was good at many things and some of those began with the letter F, but only his best friend knew he couldn’t flirt or finesse his way out of a paper bag.
To keep the others off Willow, however, he’d be willing to try.
“Are you kidding? If anyone can quickly get that analyst to lower her guard, whether it’s inside or outside the bedroom”—Castle hiked a thumb at him—“it’s our Golden Boy.”
The nickname prickled Gideon’s nerves, poking fun at his college days as a quarterback as well as fair looks that had always been more of a curse than a blessing.
The guys thought Gideon was an expert pickup artist based on his appearance. In truth, he was a magnet for flirtatious bombshells and let them pick him up instead. He was good at asking questions, not at having bullshit conversations.
“I’m capable of getting close and finding answers without…complications,” Gideon said.
“Capable, maybe, but not without complications. I’ll take her instead of handling Doc.”
“Our leak divulged classified mission details, compromised you and nearly cost your life.” Ares stabbed the air at Maddox. “Harper’s at the top of the list of suspects, and we’re worried about her feelings? Lives are on the line, national security is at risk, and the clock’s ticking. We find the mole, no matter the cost.”
An uncomfortable silence settled around the room.
“Gideon takes Harper,” Ares said. “You’ll keep Doc.”
Maddox raised both palms. “Fine.” She slid her hand in her pocket and dumped a pile of memory sticks in a clatter on the glass table.
Flash drives loaded with a cloning program. The small device plugged into the USB port of a personal computer and would copy the hard drive. Those were courtesy of Maddox’s fiancé, who worked at a private security company that specialized in corporate intelligence gathering.
“Anything I should know about her?” Gideon asked Ares as he swiped a flash drive.
Everyone would assume anything not in the surveillance report that Gideon should’ve read by now, but snooping on Willow’s personal life was a temptation he’d resisted.
“She wrote in a notebook two nights ago. Keeps it in her bedside table. I haven’t had a chance to break in and look at it with that old bulldog on patrol. And she has insomnia.”
Something they had in common.
“You don’t need me for the rest.” Gideon threw on his jacket, covering his holstered Maxim 9, and shoved through the door before bickering kicked up over the remaining targets.
The sooner he proved Willow’s innocence, whittling down the list of suspects, the better.
Muted blue partitions, beige walls, and pale-gray carpet gave the interior offices a serene atmosphere. News chatter flowed from nine large-screen TVs lining the main wall of Intel. Gideon glimpsed a report on a tropical depression over the Bahamas as he skirted the periphery of the open layout, bypassing small talk with the others. Only Willow was on his radar.
He spotted her nestled in a remote corner, facing the wall. She was typing on her dual-monitor workstation, automatic-fire keystrokes. A sleek, chocolate-brown bun with never a hair out of place showcased her slender neck and sophisticated string of pearls. But the vulnerability of her position—her six exposed and earbuds in—grated on his operational wiring.
Worst of all, the angle at which she sat deprived him of seeing her face as he approached.
Whenever he set eyes on her, he smiled, even if he didn’t show it on the outside.
He hesitated behind her, within arm’s reach. Her long, unpainted fingernails clicked keys in a blur. Lines of source code materialized. Interrupting her would be like disturbing Picasso.
In the screen’s reflection, her gaze darted up to his. She swiveled, giving him her profile, and yanked out an earbud. A lithe leg extended from her pencil skirt.
She wasn’t a classic knockout, but her haunting beauty knocked him on his heels.
“Yes?” Her surprised look read pure professional. “Did you need something?”
Now to turn on the charm. Too bad he didn’t have any. “Hey, I was wondering, would you maybe like to get a drink with me after work?”
“No, thank you.”
Ouch. He blinked like a dumbstruck idiot. Willow had little reason to be interested in him. She was demure, brainy, better than he deserved, and most of all, she knew what he really was, but he hadn’t expected such a rapid shootdown.
He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, regrouping. “I was impressed with your work on the last op, hacking the cell phone. You helped us find Maddox. Means a lot. Can I buy you dinner as thanks? Or a cup of coffee? I know a cozy café. Good music. Great espressos.”
She stared at him with those enigmatic hazel eyes, the barest flush to her porcelain skin, looking sweet enough to eat. “No need to thank me. I was doing my job. That’s why I get paid.”
Damn, she intrigued him. The sensation was unfamiliar. But at this rate, he’d have better luck playing Russian roulette than finessing his way past her defenses.
03
Gray Box Headquarters, Northern Virginia
Thursday, July 4, 6:21 p.m. EDT
Willow sat at her desk, stunned. Gideon Stone was talking to her and not about a mission.
Sometimes she overheard people call him pretty, but she didn’t understand why. There was a brutality to everything about him. From his black ops call sign—Reaper—down to his ferocious good looks: a lean face, sharp angles, bold features, and a tumble of hair the color of sunshine glinting off ice. Even his eyes were a severe blue—the palest shade, so arresting she never dared look too long for fear of staring.
Not staring was a rule she’d learned not to break, since it made people uncomfortable.
The bridge of his once-broken nose was millimeters flatter than it should’ve been. A slight crook hinted at the violence in his life, but the flaw added character to his face.
Humanized him.
Whenever she ventured close to Gideon, caution drummed inside her. The kind smart people heeded, and she had a genius-level IQ. She was likely to say the wrong thing, while he never seemed to want to say anything to her at all.
“No drinks. No dinner. No coffee,” he said, his brows drawing together in a look of concentration.
What was wrong with him? Nothing ever rattled his iceberg composure.
She was the one with social issues.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have said no, but she didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t exceed four cups of coffee a day unless working overtime, and it was absurd to thank her for doing her job. Right?
Did he really want to have dinner with her? Why? She’d smiled at him once, after taking a class on how to make friends, and a scowl had darkened his face in return.
“What are you listening to?” He pointed to her earbuds.
She pulled the other one out, tossing them on her desk. “Nothing.” The always-on TVs and chatter from her colleagues clogged her thoughts. The high-fidelity earplugs lowered the decibels of the environment to a natural sound—clean and clear—allowing her to focus.
Gideon traded his typical grimace for a feral sort of grin. At least, she hoped it was a grin. His mouth curved up, lifting his incredible cheekbones, but the rest of his face had a strained expression disturbingly similar to the one her dad got when constipated.
“What type of code are you working on?” He gestured with his chin at her computer.
“Something new.” Eager to discuss anything that wouldn’t trip her up, she turned, pointing at one monitor. Source code was safe.
Whenever she talked too long, it was evident the motherboard of her brain was wired differently. People called her odd, peculiar. Her sisters preferred the term dweeb.
“I call it the Pandora Program. It’ll detect and flag any internal security vulnerabilities in our oper
ations, so I can mitigate the possibility of us being compromised from the inside.”
He stepped up behind her, resting a hand on the back of her chair. The unexpected heat from his body tickled her spine. He always looked too removed to touch, glacier-cold, but the warmth radiating from him now was undeniable.
Clenching her thighs, she was tempted to brush against his arm for the barest contact but scooted to the edge of her seat instead. “I’m about forty-six working hours from testing it.”
“Wow. The program will be ready in a week?”
“Less. Three point two-eight days. I’ve been putting in extra hours.” It still wasn’t enough. They had a traitor in the unit, as everyone knew after the debacle with the dead guy. The program needed to be ready yesterday.
“You’re amazing,” Gideon said.
“It’s just a program.” Her computer alarm beeped. Six thirty already? “I have to go.”
She silenced the chime, saved her work, and logged off, removing her ID badge from the card reader. As she slipped on her heels, she spun the miniature globe designed out of binary digits that sat on her desk—the last thing she always did in her routine.
If only the world were as simple as the two-symbol coding system.
Snagging her purse, she stood and turned around.
Gideon’s expression went slack, his eyes growing wide. “What happened to your face?” He closed in, swallowing her comfort zone like a black hole.
She staggered back, bumping into her desk, and touched the cut on her cheek near her left ear. “It’s just a nick. He threw a dish and the broken pieces went flying. It was an accident.”
“Who?” Gideon reached for her cheek, and she sidestepped him. “Your boyfriend?”
Boyfriend? She’d only have one of those in her dreams. Unfortunately, she never dreamed.
“I-I’m going to be late.” She scrambled into the aisle, avoiding him. “I have to go.”
He strolled alongside her for some unfathomable reason. His strong physique and weightless stride—propelled by athletic grace—projected his lethal ability to handle anything.
“I’ll walk you out to your car.” A declaration, not a question.
Her stomach somersaulted. “What? Why?”
It took nine minutes to get from her desk to the parking lot, depending on the wait for the elevator. An extra two to her car since she parked on the far end. That meant for eleven minutes, she’d have to talk. With him. Concentrate on the rules to seem nice. She wasn’t unfriendly, but things got lost in translation.
Her rib cage tightened, making it hard to breathe. “There’s no need to walk me out.”
“I’m leaving anyway. It’s no trouble.” Gideon peered down at her and the intense look in his piercing blue eyes sent butterflies dancing in her belly.
She stared at him, trying to recall why it was a bad idea, and tripped over her feet. Gah!
Tearing her gaze away, she focused on what was going on around her, determined to pull it together and not fall flat on her face.
Holding center stage in the middle of Intel as she passed around a platter of fudge was Janet Price, the director’s assistant. She was a Rubenesque woman who had an effortless way of bringing people together over her homemade dishes.
Gideon stopped and joined the gaggle. Willow considered hurrying to the elevator, but she needed to work on being socially acceptable in the office. So she stayed, following etiquette about mingling for a minute or two to avoid coming across as antisocial.
Laughter floated in the air over the background noise of the news. Doc and Janet giggled, practically arm-in-arm and breathless over one of Daniel Cutter’s Marine Force Recon stories.
On and on Daniel went. His stories always sounded the same, not at all funny to Willow. She never got their humor.
Voracious hands shoveled chocolate into eager mouths. Chatter flowed easy as a breeze.
Willow swallowed past the tightening in her throat. Sometimes she longed to be a sail riding that breeze but usually found herself a feather adrift in it. Social codes and cues she couldn’t decipher layered their conversations. There was a wall between Willow and everyone else. She didn’t know how to break it down, and trying was overwhelming.
Gideon swiped a couple pieces of fudge, and a slow-burning smile spread across his face. An odd tingle gathered in Willow’s chest, making her toes bunch in her shoes.
“Janet,” Gideon said, “your fudge is the best.”
Everyone else chimed in with a chorus of compliments. Willow’s obligated two minutes of office mingling were up. This was the perfect moment to skedaddle to the elevator. Alone.
She pivoted and nearly bumped into Amanda Woodrow, the lead analyst.
“Willow,” Amanda said, smiling. “I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Not now. I need to leave.” Willow rolled her pearls between her fingers, hoping her honesty didn’t sound rude. Amanda was a lovely supervisor, never giving her a hard time about special accommodations like the setup of her workstation. Willow didn’t want to offend her.
“It’ll just take a sec. You’re doing a great job. I’m really impressed with the counterintelligence program you’re developing.”
As Amanda kept praising her, taking far longer than a second, Willow got a queasy ache in her stomach. She had to end this conversation. In a book she’d read, one technique was to change the subject with unexpected flattery followed by a direct farewell. But what to say? Her gaze roamed over Amanda’s desk, past colorful crayon drawings and to the photo of her five-year-old son, finally with a full head of hair since his leukemia had gone into remission.
“I like your son’s curls,” Willow said, cutting off Amanda. “They’re really pretty.”
“Uh.” Amanda’s brow furrowed. “Thank you.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Before Willow took ten steps, Gideon stalked off from his friends, waving goodbye. He was at her side again, stirring unease in her and, at the same time, a shocking sense of comfort.
What in The Twilight Zone was happening?
Gideon popped the chocolate in his mouth, moaning mmmm, an intense look on his face, fingers curling as he savored it. Oh, she’d love to melt in his mouth like that. Mmmm, indeed.
But even if she managed to get through a conversation without babbling or blowing it by being herself, she’d heard through office gossip about the way he picked up women at Rocky’s Bar. For one night only. Reminded her of a Broadway musical song her mom had loved.
“One night only,” she sang under her breath, “come on, baby.”
“What’d you say?” Gideon licked the remnants of chocolate from his fingers.
“Oh, nothing.” Her cheeks burned. Shut. Up.
“Why didn’t you take any fudge? Don’t like chocolate?”
“I love chocolate, but I don’t eat homemade stuff other people bring in.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if their kitchen is clean, if they have cats or wash their hands before cooking. Amanda told me her son, Jackson, sneezed in cake batter once, and she still baked it.”
Willow’s skin crawled with the heebie-jeebies.
“Don’t you have a dog?”
“Cats and dogs are different. Cats climb all over everything. But no, I don’t have a dog.”
Gideon nodded with another constipated expression. She bit her lip, quickening her step.
In the central hall, they passed Director Sanborn talking to two forensic accountants who’d been ordered to report here even though it was a holiday. The chief wanted to follow the money to find the mole by auditing everyone. The pressure on him was immense. Surely, the director of national intelligence and the president, the only two people Sanborn answered to, were looking at this situation under a microscope.
The chief was a good
man and always looked out for her. She didn’t want to let him down. Hopefully, her new program would help catch the traitor.
Gideon tapped the button for the elevator and stood behind her, where she’d have to look over her shoulder to see him. Glancing at the carpet, she slipped her purse strap across her body and peeked back to glimpse his boots. He had big feet to match the rest of him.
“Sorry I held you up at your desk.” His warm breath brushed the nape of her neck, and her skin tingled.
“It’s okay.” She fought the dangerous impulse to look back.
“Are you hurrying off to an appointment?”
“Sort of.” After the last around-the-clock mission, she’d made a promise to be home for dinner every night this week and make fresh-cooked meals.
The ten-inch reinforced-steel elevator doors opened. She stepped inside with a shaky exhale and slunk to the far corner, needing a little distance between herself and him.
Gideon strode into the car. The heavy doors slid shut with a soft thud. He leaned against the side of the elevator and crossed his arms. Light danced off his hair, forming a halo, but his hard body and smooth swagger spelled unabashed sinner rather than saint.
His gaze homed in on hers. A shiver chased through her down to her thighs.
“You never told me what happened to your face,” he said.
“Yes, I did.” Her voice was the barest thread of sound.
“You neglected to mention who’s responsible.”
“It’s none of your business.”
He pressed his lips together and lowered his head for a second. “You’re right. I don’t mean to pry. I’m concerned, that’s all.” He pushed off the wall and moved toward her. The stark power of his impossible-to-ignore masculinity drove her feet backward.
“There’s nothing to be concerned about,” she said.
“Then what happened? A guy threw something at you?”
“Not at me.” Her nerves drummed. “It’s personal. I don’t discuss my private life with coworkers.” The steel wall at her spine stopped her retreat. “And we’re not friends.”
He halted shy of breaching her personal space, a good foot between them, and stared down at her for so long with his brows scrunched, she wondered what he’d say next, if anything.