Saving Mr. Perfect

by Tamara Morgan

  All I have to do is reach in and grab it. The beige folds practically flutter at me, encouraging me to spread their wings and unlock the secrets of my past. My adolescence, spent as an abandoned teen with only my friends for support. My list of past crimes, including the millions of dollars’ worth of jewels that Riker and I stole over the years, with occasional help from Jordan and Oz. My supposed current crimes, too—the work of a copycat who doesn’t seem to mind that her thefts are being attributed to me.

  If I were a betting woman, I’d also place a hefty wager that this file contains the courtship Grant and I shared, including our marriage—that rocky first year when neither of us knew how much love and trust we shared. Everything my husband ever thought or did in relation to me is a few inches away.

  I take a deep breath and reach for the folder…and then drop my hand to my side.

  To get what I want in this world, I’ve stolen precious heirlooms and priceless gifts, crawled into vents and climbed up elevator shafts. No job was too heinous to consider, no victim worthy enough to give me pause. I even married a man I knew to be my sworn enemy in an attempt to continue my criminal life without consequence.

  But I can’t do it. Even if Grant is seconds away from arresting me—either for being the Peep-Toe Prowler or because I tricked him into helping me break into the FBI—I can’t betray the trust he put in me when he looked into my eyes and said I do. I guess some things are sacred, even to a woman like me.

  Riker is going to be so pissed.

  With a sigh, I shut the filing cabinet and sink into Grant’s office chair to await the outcome of my day’s work. The hiss of the hydraulics drops me further than I expect, and I flail against the backrest, which gives way behind me. Before I know it, I’m sprawled on the ground, the chair crashed to the floor and my head ringing as I stare up at the perforated drop ceiling.

  Well, that was graceful.

  At first, I think it’s the head injury causing me to see things, because visions of one of the world’s most handsome men start swimming in front of my face. There are three of him—three heads of golden hair glistening above three faces that form a triad of perfect symmetry. The man almost seems too good to be real, what with the three chins containing three clefts in the center, the three pairs of arched brows a few shades darker than the hair, the three dazzling white smiles that culminate in three dimples in three right cheeks.

  I blink, and the images blur before coming together as one. The result is only more impressive, the power of triplicate combining to blind me with its brilliance.

  “Well, well, what do we have here?” That cleft chin comes at me full force, and I find myself rolling to the side to dodge it. It’s a useless maneuver underneath Grant’s desk, where the heavy wooden legs and overflowing wastebasket impede my progress, so it’s just as well that the man offers his hand instead. “You must be Emerson’s wife. It’s so great to finally meet you.”

  All I can do is blink at him as he pulls me to my feet. Still light-headed from the double impact of my fall and his dazzling beauty, I murmur a noncommittal response.

  “I’m Christopher,” he says. Booms, actually, his voice loud and full of the arrogant confidence I normally associate with investment bankers and men who tailgate. “Christopher Leon.”

  Of course he is. Leon the lion, roaring and golden and proud.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself proud, but thank you.”

  “Oh, God. Did I say that out loud?” I put my hand to my head, surprised when my fingers don’t come away sticky with blood. I must have hit the ground harder than I thought if I’m blurting out random compliments. Women who break into the FBI should be a little more discreet than that.

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t. I’m not sure anyone has called me a lion before.”

  “If it helps, I have nicknames for most of the agents Grant works with,” I offer. “It’s the only way I can keep you all straight.”

  Sterling Simon. Agent Barrel Chest. Before I got to know him, Grant was our Guard Dog—a great hairy beast of a threat to everything we held dear. Nicknaming people is a pretty handy trick when you have to meet a lot of dark suits who look at you with the same wary disdain.

  “Then I accept,” he says. Instead of wary disdain, he flashes his dimple at me. I can only assume it’s the most powerful weapon in his arsenal, and that’s saying a lot—I can tell from the familiar bulge at his side that he’s packing. “Are you okay? That was some crash.”

  “I’ll live. The chair was slippery.”

  Since I don’t want to dwell on my other slippery movements around the office until I have a more accurate read on this guy, I attempt to deflect him with flattery.

  “Thanks for coming in to make sure I was still breathing,” I say. “Are you the one in charge of guarding—ah, I mean, protecting—me until this is all over?”

  “No, Paulie’s out there for that,” he says. “I just wanted to come in and introduce myself while I had the chance. You don’t mind, do you?”

  Theoretically, I don’t mind—I like meeting new people, and I like meeting the people my husband works with in particular—but something about this overloud, overeager man feels off. I watch as he rights the office chair and holds it in place for me to take a seat. He doesn’t move or speak until I lower myself into it.

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” he adds with an uncomfortable laugh. “All signs indicate we’re dealing with a false alarm. I’m sure you and your husband will be just fine.”

  “I know that,” I say. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned being married to Grant, it’s that he can handle himself.”

  Too well, I want to add but don’t. I sometimes feel my life would be much easier if my husband sucked at something for a change. He cooks, he cleans, he knows his way around the bedroom. He even remembers to call his mother every weekend. Independently, these things are great—fantastic, if we’re dwelling on the sex—but together?

  It’s hard to compete with that kind of perfection is all I’m saying.

  “Yeah, Emerson has never been one to rely on others. He’d take out a room of twenty men using nothing but a ballpoint pen before he’d consider calling for backup.”

  I groan, fully able to picture that exact scenario. In my imagination, he does it without a shirt on, too.

  “Please tell me he’s never had to take out a room of twenty men using nothing but a ballpoint pen,” I say. “Can’t you guys put a tracker on him or something?”

  “I tried once. He found it within five minutes and threatened to extract my windpipe if I did it again.” Christopher follows up this startling piece of news with a darkening look in his eyes, which are the same deep brown as Grant’s. “He’s not that violent at home, is he?”

  I’m momentarily taken aback. “Um…no? Not usually. But he does sometimes throw cheese puffs at the TV when the Giants are losing.”

  I hope I sound convincing enough. Grant isn’t a violent man—not to me, anyway—but if my presence at the FBI building today proves anything, it’s that he is a tenacious one. Once he gets an idea in his head, he holds onto it like a—what else?—guard dog and his bone. Convincing him of one’s innocence isn’t so easy after that.

  Although the two men share the same eye color, the similarities end there. Christopher takes a seat opposite me, nervously hitching his slacks before settling one long leg over the other. Like every other agent in this building, he’s clad in a dark suit and dark tie, but I can tell from the way the fabric carries a slight sheen that his suit isn’t the usual off-the-rack variety. Grant takes pride in his appearance but not so much that he’s willing to drop a fourth figure on the clothes he wears when he shoots people.

  “So, Mrs. Emerson,” he says with a cough, “what do we have to thank for your presence here today?”

  “Nothing, really,” I say. There isn’t time to come u
p with a more interesting lie, so I stick to the one I used with Cheryl. “I stopped by for a visit to see how my husband is doing. And I’m not Mrs. Emerson—I mean, I am married to Grant, but I didn’t change my last name. Most people call me Pen.”

  There’s a slight pause before the dimple appears in Christopher’s cheek again. “Penelope the Pen. Mightier than the sword. To hold one is to be at war.” He taps the cleft in his chin. “Hmm. I know I’m missing a few.”

  I’m forced into a laugh. “The war one might fit, but I don’t know about the rest.”

  “I do. I’ve heard too many good things about you to believe otherwise.”

  Impossible. I’m pretty sure Simon uses my picture as a dartboard. “That’s funny, when I’ve never heard about you. How long have you been with the Bureau?”

  Immediately, a frown crosses his face, taking all traces of his dimple along with it. When he speaks again, his voice has lost its booming charm. Now it’s merely loud. “Emerson has never mentioned me? Not even in passing?”

  “Not that I can remember, but I’m sure it’s nothing personal. Grant doesn’t talk to me about work stuff.”

  Never about work stuff. Instead, he gives me shoes and waits for one of them to drop.

  “Speaking of, he’s been unusually preoccupied lately,” I say, adopting an innocent smile. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what that’s about, do you? The case he’s working on must be important to have him so wrapped up.”

  “It is.” He blinks at me. “There are some pretty high stakes.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. “Oh, really? How exciting. Does that mean you’re working on it, too?”

  My sweetly feminine exhilaration is supposed to unwind him, but either my femininity needs improving or Christopher’s flexibility does. He casts me a queer look that borders on suspicious, and I tuck my feet under the chair in hopes he won’t notice my footwear. It’s not that I’m afraid of the FBI—you have to be guilty of something for that—but I can’t help recalling my husband’s dire warnings that I’m one small slipup away from a life behind bars. I mean, I assume he’s exaggerating most of the time, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. And if there is a case currently being mounted against me…

  “You could say I’m working on it,” he says carefully.

  “Is that right? In what capacity?”

  He leans closer. “Are you sure your husband hasn’t said anything about me or this case?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Not even in passing? Not even by accident?”

  All of a sudden, the things I admired about this man seconds ago take on dangerous implications. His size, his charm, the gun at his side…just what is he implying?

  “You obviously don’t know my husband well, or you wouldn’t ask me that,” I say hotly. “Grant is the best and hardest-working agent in this place. He’d never do anything to jeopardize a case.”

  I know that’s ironic coming from me, but it’s the truth. Grant is everything I’m not—noble and honorable and righteous and good. I get to my feet and make as if to leave the office with all my dignity intact.

  “What are you doing?” Christopher also rises, and since he’s nearer the door, the movement transforms him into a human blockade. A very tall, very wide, very well-dressed human blockade. “I can’t let you go. You haven’t been given the all clear yet.”

  “Thank you, but I can make do without it. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  He doesn’t. He grabs me by the upper arms before I take more than a few steps, his grip tight and his expression tense. I cry out, more from surprise than pain, but the damage has already been done. Before we can register the crash of the door being thrown open, Grant appears.

  He fills the doorframe easily, all broad shoulders and stormy outrage, every sign of my beloved husband scratched from the surface. He’s been replaced by a man who’s one hundred percent business…and one hundred percent displeased to find me caught trying to escape.

  My heart clenches. Of all the terrible things I’ve done to my husband—and there have been some doozies—he’s never given me real cause for fear before.

  And yet without waiting to hear my side of the story, he lunges into the room and heads straight for me.

  3

  THE LION

  Despite my checkered past, facing my husband in his full, federal agent fury isn’t something I have much experience with. No sooner does Grant start charging than I find myself growing woozy. My head fills with a buzzing lightness as all the blood in my body is redirected elsewhere. Breaking into the FBI always carried a strong chance of upsetting Grant, but I never thought I’d see such loathing reflected in those soft brown eyes. I never thought he’d hate me.

  Oh, God. I think I’m going to pass out.

  “Grant, I can explain—” I begin, but I don’t make it any further before Grant pounces.

  “Get your hands off my wife,” he growls.

  But I am your wife, I think, confused.

  It’s only then that I realize he isn’t heading toward me—he’s angling himself so that Christopher is his target. And that lunge of Grant’s, so frightening in its aggression, isn’t to attack.

  It’s to protect. It’s to protect me.

  I yelp as Grant inserts his body between mine and Christopher’s, my arm wrenched out of the latter’s grasp in the process. Heat radiates off my husband—force and anxiety and anger mixing together in a mass of volcanic energy. Even though I’m not in need of his protection, I can’t help but be flustered by his strength and his instincts, by the way those two things always seem to center on me.

  He might think I’m a liar and a thief, but, dammit, he loves me. There’s something to be said for devotion like that.

  “Whoa, whoa.” Christopher backs up a few steps, though I notice his hand goes down to his hip rather than up in a show of surrender. “Calm down, Emerson. I only stopped by to introduce myself.”

  Grant doesn’t stand down, but a slight relaxation moves through him, water rolling over stone. “Right now? With the entire building on alert?”

  “You told me you had it covered.”

  “What I told you was to stay out of it.” Grant pauses, eyeing Christopher with what looks like lingering suspicion. “I put her in here for a reason—and that reason wasn’t so you could manhandle her.”

  Manhandle seems a pretty strong word for what went on, but I know better than to speak up when two feral animals are locking horns. That’s how lady animals get gouged.

  “But she was trying to leave before it was safe!”

  Grant’s voice is a low growl. “As long as I’m breathing, she’ll always be safe.”

  And that, my friends, is why lady animals don’t necessarily mind.

  “Of course she will be.” Christopher backtracks with a light step. “No harm, no foul. I thought you might appreciate having extra eyes on her, that’s all.”

  “Well, I don’t. Not if they’re your eyes.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Christopher says, though I notice he doesn’t apologize.

  “No, it won’t,” Grant agrees. He’s also not very apologetic, and I have the feeling this is as close to a reconciliation as they’re capable of getting. Which is odd, now that I think about it. My husband is the type of guy who gets along with everyone. Even the old man who lives across the street from our suburban house likes him, and Harold’s idea of a good time is shooting squirrels out of his tree with a water gun.

  “Then it’s settled.” Christopher nods as if everything has been arranged to his satisfaction. “Does this mean we’re cleared to get back to work? There was no attack?”

  Grant is careful not to look at me. “There was no attack. It was a false alarm.”

  “That’s good news. We have enough to do today without a chemical spill on top of everything els
e. I left Doggart in temporary charge of the crime scene, but I’d like to oversee it myself. Would you rather head out to join me or interview witnesses back here?”

  “I’d like a minute with my wife first, if you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, sorry. Of course. I completely understand.” Christopher claps a hand on Grant’s back, a move even I—as the woman he pledged his life and love to—wouldn’t have dared to attempt in his current mood. “Take all the time you need. I’ll cover until you get her safely home.”

  “That won’t be necessary. This won’t take long.”

  That, at least, bodes well for my chances of survival. Smuggling my dead body out of here would take at least half an hour.

  Christopher turns his false heartiness on me before he leaves, bending at the waist and pressing my hand warmly.

  “It was lovely to meet you, Penelope,” he says, oblivious to Grant’s grunt of irritation. “I apologize if I startled you earlier. Working with your husband is something I’m keenly proud of, so it came as a surprise to discover he hadn’t mentioned me. He’s a pretty big deal around here. As soon as I found out we were assigned to the same case, I told everyone I knew.”

  Aw. Even though my adrenaline has yet to abate, my heartstrings give a gentle tug in his direction. The poor guy was probably feeling slighted earlier. I can hardly hold it against him. To be in Grant’s inner circle, to matter to him, is the most glorious feeling in the world. It’s like being the pope’s confessor or knowing that James Bond keeps you on speed dial.

  “It was nice to meet you, too, Christopher the Lion,” I say. I withdraw my hand from his clasp, but only after giving his a squeeze in return. Solidarity among Grant Emerson aficionados and all that. “I hope we can try this again sometime soon. And don’t worry—I’ll have him back to you as quickly as possible.”