“And only when she’s trying to wriggle away,” he adds with a low rumble. “Don’t forget, you’ve tried to escape me before. There’s a lot more teeth and a lot less ass involved when you’re really trying.”
First of all, that’s not true. I always use my ass to try and get my way. It’s one of my best features. And second of all…
“Okay, okay. I get the point.” I relax in his arms, not pushing him away so much as melting into his pecs. “You’re the master, and I’m the weak, swooning female you can reduce to a pool of desire with your tongue. Congratulations.”
His eyes crinkle in a self-satisfied—and ridiculously alluring—smile. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” I force myself away from the warm protection of his body and hold out my wrists. “You can take comfort in that while I sit in a cold, sterile cell surrounded by hardened criminals. Don’t get mad if I come home with all kinds of new tricks. I intend to use my time in the clink wisely.”
His laugh is half groan. “For Christ’s sake, Penelope. I’m not arresting you.”
“But you said—”
“That Leon asked me to bring you in, not that I’m going to. Why do you have to make things so goddamned difficult all the time?”
“Because I married a goddamned difficult man. Funny how these things work out.” I drop my wrists. “You really aren’t going to haul me in?”
“Why is it that I’m the only FBI agent you consider a viable threat?”
I can tell, from the way his lips quiver between amusement and a deep-seated urge to strangle me, that we’re on safe ground again. Also that I might have overreacted a little.
Oops.
“Because,” I say, flashing him my most mischievous smile, “you’re the only FBI agent who can catch me.”
With such flattery as that up for grabs, he has no choice but to blow out a long breath—the breath of a man goaded to his limit. I take advantage of the moment to press my case.
“And I don’t understand,” I add. “If you’re not putting me under arrest, what are you trying to do? What does Christopher want from me?”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not getting it,” is all the answer Grant provides.
“Come on—you have to give me more than that,” I say.
“I can’t.”
“Why? Because I can’t handle the truth?”
“No. Because I don’t know the truth.”
“Then you better make something up. Something convincing, because I’ll take myself in if you don’t start giving me some answers.”
Grant’s eyes flash. “Christopher Leon is obsessed with you and has been for years. I don’t know why, but by the way he’s been acting lately, I’m half convinced he plans to kidnap you, lock you in an abandoned warehouse somewhere, and extract your family’s secrets fingernail by fingernail.”
I throw up my hands. This is what happens when you try to talk rationally to an overbearing FBI agent who also shares your bed. “You were supposed to tell me something convincing, not the plot of a B horror movie,” I accuse.
“I can’t help it if truth is stranger than fiction. I already told you that he’s been angling for your arrest. You chose not to believe me. You thought I was being overprotective.”
“You are being overprotective.”
“I’m being the exact amount of protective I need to be,” he says with a growl. It’s a good opportunity for him to open up and elaborate, but all he does is pause, his hard gaze gentling as he reaches out to take my hand. “If I asked you to go out of town, no questions asked, until this case is over and Christopher Leon has moved on, would you do it? Would you let me keep you safe the best way I know how?”
I want to say yes—I really do. Few things in life make me happier than pleasing my husband. I love seeing his lips spread in a smile of fondness and affection; I love even more that I have the ability to elicit that response whenever I want. That’s a heady power few people can boast of possessing.
And if it were anything else he was asking me for, I might do it.
“No.” I see the pain in his eyes and wince. “I’m sorry, but that’s not how this works.”
“I know it’s not.” However promising his words, the sigh that follows is about a thousand years old. “I haven’t been fair to you lately, have I, my love?”
My heart clenches. There aren’t many people who could look at the life Grant and I share and think he’s the one who’s being unfair.
“I’m onto something here, Grant,” I say, my voice wavering only slightly. “This stuff with my grandmother means I have a good opportunity to dig deeper. I can go places and talk to people you can’t, attend parties, and keep my eyes open. Who knows? I might end up being good at this undercover criminal investigation stuff. It’s…fun.”
There are a dozen more reasons I could give him for letting me in—my connections and my ability to hide in small spaces, the fact that I’m willing to work for free. But none of them are as important as that one simple fact: it’s fun.
These past few days have given me more pleasure and purpose than the entire past six months combined. These past few days, I’ve been happy.
I pause, desperate to say those words aloud but unable to, knowing how much pain they would cause him. I can only watch and wait, my heart thumping in my chest.
Grant pauses with me, his eyes dark and searching. I swear that he can see the rapid beat of my pulse, that he knows how much hinges on these next moments, but I don’t back down.
Neither does he, and I have no idea how long we stand there before he finally nods and says, “Okay.”
I’m not sure if I heard him correctly. “Okay?”
Both his nod and his voice gain strength the second time around. “Okay. I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your exciting new career.”
“Bullshit. You want to stand in my way so bad, you can taste it.”
He laughs at that, though there’s a tense undercurrent he can’t fully hide. “I want to do a lot of things to you, Penelope Blue, but I usually find a way to restrain myself. I don’t think I get nearly enough credit for that.” He draws a deep breath, his chest expanding until it seems twice its normal size. “If there’s nothing I can say or do to stop you…”
I shake my head.
“Then you have my full support. I told you the other day that I want you to be happy, and I meant it. If meddling in a federal investigation at the risk of your own safety is what makes you happy, then I’ll move the sky and earth to make it happen. And I will do everything in my power to keep Leon at bay while you do it.”
I wait patiently for the bricks to start falling.
“But…”
Ah. There they are.
“I want something from you in return.”
“I’m listening,” I say, and I am listening—so hard you could hear a grenade pin drop.
“The deal is simple. When the case is solved and everything is over, you have to promise me you’ll find a safe, sane occupation as far away from the FBI as you can get.”
I blink a few times, waiting for the rest—the catch or the ultimatum, an indication that my husband is playing a deeper game. The silence with which he greets me doesn’t make me feel confident it’s coming any time soon.
“Um. Are you joking?”
“No. You’re asking me to set aside my better judgment for something you want. It’s only fair that I get the same consideration from you.” The only thing flatter than his tone is the hard press of his lips. From the look of him, you’d think he just asked me to stop murdering people and burying them in the basement. “No more moonlighting as a federal agent after this, I’m begging you. Find something else you can enjoy. I don’t like—”
He doesn’t finish. A curt shake of his head and a deep breath are all he gives me, and I gotta say—they’re not making me
feel much better. What doesn’t he like? That I’m trying to help him? That I’m a drain on society and the world at large? That it turns out I’m no good at anything other than stealing jewels?
The last one makes my blood run cold, the truth of it too blaring to ignore. It’s exactly what I’ve feared since the day I gave up my life of crime. As a jewel thief, I was pretty decent. As a law-abiding human being, I’m barely mediocre. I always knew Grant would realize it someday.
I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
“I don’t like seeing you so miserable,” he finally finishes, but it’s a case of too little, too late. The damage has been done, the cold weight of reality wedged between us. I’m not the wife he thought he was getting the day he married me.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “Earlier, you said Christopher wants to lock me in a warehouse.”
“He probably does.”
“You said he wants to pull out my fingernails.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.”
“And you don’t care? You’ll let that happen as long as I find myself a nice, ordinary job like a nice, ordinary person?”
He sighs and rubs a hand on the back of his neck, a picture of masculine perfection. “Of course I care. If I had my way, I’d have kept you out of this entire case—out of the entire FBI database—from the start. But that’s not possible now, and more than anything, I want you to be…”
I wait, my chest tight as he struggles to suppress another sigh. His gaze catches mine and holds. I can see that there’s more going on behind those dark eyes, but he doesn’t let anything go.
“You know your own limits, Penelope—better than Christopher does, better than I do. That’s why I’ve decided to stop trying to stand in your way and take an alternate route.” His lips turn up in a slight smile—his first since this conversation started. “A dangerous, misguided route, yes, but when have we ever walked anything else? If there aren’t underhanded deals and convoluted bargains required to get there, you aren’t interested.”
“That’s not true!” I protest, but it totally is. A flicker of excitement has already begun heating the soles of my feet. Not about finding a safe, sane occupation, obviously, but the rest of it—the opportunity to meet this man on the battlefield once again, the sense of danger and intrigue involved in a case of this magnitude.
In other words, all those things a decent human being would balk at but that I can’t seem to live without.
“What’s the catch?” I ask, still suspicious. I can’t help thinking there’s more to this plan than Grant is sharing.
If there is, he’s not going to open up about it today. “You mean other than the possibility of you falling under the power of a dangerous man? Nothing. I don’t love this idea, but I do love you, so those are my terms. You’re free to take them or leave them as you see fit.”
He turns and saunters down the hall before I can do much more than open and close my mouth in disbelief, his ass a vision of perfection wrapped up in white terry cloth.
“That’s all you’re going to say?” I call after that perfection.
“Yes.” But he pauses at our bedroom door. “Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you’d invest in a different pair of shoes before you decide. If you’re going to be running for your life, I’d feel a lot better knowing you’re doing it in flats.”
15
THE ALLY
The first person I turn to for advice isn’t the man you’d expect.
“So you’re okay with me investigating Tara on the sly?” I pass my dad his stethoscope and watch as he hangs it over his neck, looking very much like a nice, ordinary doctor. The effect is ruined when he heads straight to the safe hidden in the wall of his closet. “It’s not only me who thinks she might be the Peep-Toe Prowler. Grant also suspects she’s involved.”
“I’ll tell you exactly what I told her,” my father says calmly. “What you do with your free time is of no concern to me, and I refuse to get involved. Have lunch. Go shopping. Break into rich people’s homes and steal their valuables. I don’t care. I’m just glad the two of you are spending time together.”
“Dad, I’m not the one stealing—” I begin, but he slips the stethoscope into his ears, and I give up. Explaining to my father that I’m with the good guys for once is useless. Equally useless is getting him to believe that he—or anyone he cares about—is in danger from the law. Like most great men, he has an ironclad belief in his own infallibility.
Which, given his current arrest record, is a touch ironic.
I watch as he places the chestpiece near the safe’s dial and makes a few twists and turns. His brow furrows as he listens for the telltale click of the drive pins falling into place. Childhood memories of this exact scenario remind me that he requires complete silence to get the job done. There’s no playing, no talking, no fun. Just watching and learning from the best.
Despite my early exposure, cracking safes is a task I never mastered. Neither is being quiet and unobtrusive, but I slow my breathing and prepare not to make any sudden movements for as long as it takes him to gain entrance.
Fortunately for us both, less than sixty seconds pass before my father swings the safe door open in triumph.
Or, rather, as much triumph as you can expect from a man as cool and collected as my father. Even in moments of victory, he’s like Clint Eastwood getting his man.
“Fifteen and then seven.” My dad slips the stethoscope off with a shake of his head. “I had it backward. Take my advice, baby doll: never get old.”
I blink at him. “Couldn’t you have called down to the front desk and asked them for the combination?”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t ask me that.” He extracts an envelope from the safe and hands it to me. “And I hope this little ruse of yours is worth it. I was saving this for a rainy day.”
A knock prevents me from showing my appreciation in full, but I manage to brush a quick kiss on his cheek before he goes to open the door.
“Ah, Agent Sterling. Right on time. Your punctuality is always a delight.”
Simon cracks a smile—an actual smile—before he notices me standing in the middle of the room. Then he can’t drop the joy fast enough.
“Hello,” I call cheerfully. I also wave the envelope, since there’s a good chance he might turn tail and flee otherwise. “My dad entrusted his deepest, darkest secrets to me, so you might as well come in. I’m not giving them up easily.”
He doesn’t cross the threshold, opting instead to look between me and my father with a confused purse to his brow. “What is this?”
“Don’t ask me. I’m merely a vessel.” My dad pauses. “But you’ll find that the list is fully intact. Don’t make me regret my decision to share it with you, yes?”
And with that, my dad walks to his bedroom, pulling the wide French doors closed behind him. It’s a grand exit, the only kind he’s capable of, and I sigh at how neatly he pulls it off. My dad sure kept all the suave genes for himself.
“Stop gawking at me, and get inside already,” I say to Simon irritably. “I’m not going to hurt you. This isn’t what you think.”
“You have no idea what I think,” Simon says. He takes a step and shuts the door but refuses to move beyond the threshold. His already uptight posture is so tense, it’s a wonder he can move his legs.
Good thing I know how to get them going again.
“Are these really the secret locations of all the lost Fabergé eggs?” I ask as I pretend to open the envelope. Predictably, Simon lunges across the room before I manage to crack the seal.
He’s fast, but I’m faster, and I hold the envelope just out of his reach. “How much money do you think I’d get if I took the grand tour and recovered them for myself?” I add in a teasing voice. “They’ve only been missing for, what, a hundred years?”
“Give it to me.”
“Not until you do something for me first.”
“This isn’t funny.” He swipes again, but he’s reluctant to get close enough to make physical contact. In all the time I’ve known Simon, I don’t think he’s willingly touched me a single time. It’s almost as if he’s afraid I’ve got FBI-agent-turning powers at the tips of my fingers. “The only reason I came here today is because your father said it’s important.”
“It is important.” I stop the game as quickly as I started it and press the envelope into his hand. I also seat myself on the couch while he’s still staring perplexedly at it. “Sit down, Simon. I promise this won’t take long.”
I’ve never considered Simon a particularly handsome man, especially not when set against the brawny, all-American charm my husband oozes in abundance, but he has a straitlaced attractiveness I imagine might appeal to women who don’t mind cozying up to blocks of ice. His chilly exterior remains in place as he seats himself across from me, careful not to let our knees bump.
Eventually, he thaws. “Is this about you trying to catch the Peep-Toe Prowler on your own?” he asks.
I’m less surprised by the fact that he knows about my efforts and more surprised that he doesn’t seem to be censuring me for it. Talk about unprecedented behavior. Warily, I reply, “I’m not doing it on my own. My friends are helping.”
“Huh.”
Not You guys are a menace to society. No Stay out of it or else. Just huh.
In Simon terms, that’s as good as an invitation, and it’s one I don’t neglect to take him up on. “I need you to tell me everything you know about Christopher Leon,” I say. “Especially as it relates to him being a potential double agent.”
Simon’s glittering blue eyes meet mine in a moment of rare understanding, and I’m grateful, for what might be the first time in my life, that FBI agents don’t have to be spoon-fed the details. It’s no accident that I chose my father’s hotel room as the location of our tête-à-tête today, and Simon knows it. As Grant was all too quick to point out when I first told him about Tara being in town, neither friend nor foe nor FBI mole can get inside this room without my father knowing about it. It’s the only truly secure place in the city, the only place a man—or woman—can feel free to talk without fear of being overheard.
Saving Mr. Perfect Page 14