“It’s a hell of a spot to be in.” His head hung low and shook it in short, clipped motions. He looked at me and slowly, his hand moved to my cheek, my tears washing over it. My skin tingled where he’d touched me and a burn settled in my chest. “I have an idea.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, loud and broken. I sniffed. His fingers brushed at my tears again. His deep, intense gaze was probing, but he didn’t speak.
I brushed at the tears with the heels of my hands and then took a deep, shuddering breath. “We are spies.”
“And?” He ran his fingers fleetingly over my lips.
“Our jobs. Who we are.” Excitement burst out of me at the realization. “We pretend to be people we aren’t every day. We can pretend not to be together.”
He nodded, slowly. “We are good at what we do. That’s why we can’t be together, remember?”
“Don’t you see?” I said, standing up, energy filling me. “We can be together and they don’t have to know.” I had no idea why I hadn’t thought of this earlier.
He still looked puzzled, so I forged on. It seemed so obvious now. “We are not only good at what we do. We are amazing at what we do. And because we are amazing at it, we most certainly can have a relationship without Division knowing. How many times a day do we do something in secret? Things that no one knows about? We can do this.”
His eyes suddenly sparkled. He must’ve finally understood. But he was shaking his head instead of nodding. “I don’t know. I don’t know if I can be around you and not touch you. My face will betray me.”
“You don’t betray yourself when you’re on a job. Ever. You have to see us as a job. A most wonderful and perfect job.”
He chuckled and his eyes beamed into mine as he stood. I followed.
I needed him. He had to agree. He had to see it would work. “You won’t betray yourself now. And if they discover us, what are they going to do? It’s not like they would expel their two best spies.”
“Actually they would.” He grimaced. “I’ve seen it happen.”
I put my hand up to his mouth. He sighed and I moved my hand.
“Do you really think we could pull it off?” he asked. “I’m your handler. I’m supposed to stop you from doing reckless things like this.” His hand brushed down my arm.
“Instead, we can make it happen.” I closed the small distance between us.
“You’re the one thing I’d never imagined when I became a spy.” He took my hand and caressed the top of it with his thumb. His eyes burned into mine. His other hand drifted along the back of my neck. Nice and slow.
My heart beat hard. Shallow fast breaths filled the space between us until his eyes closed and our lips met. My insides were on fire, whipping and roaring about. There was no distance between us, and yet, I wanted him to be somehow closer. This would have to do for now. He pulled back at some point. The smile that split across his face instantly brought a smile to my own. I desperately wanted to kiss him again. To distract myself I said, “I’m so glad that they are honoring my promise to Kamal. He gave up everything to help me.”
Jeremy must’ve noticed the distraction because he dropped his hands and sat down on the couch again, then patted the empty spot next to him. I grinned and sat.
“Yes,” he said. “And the reunion was amazing. I wish you could have seen it. Kamal and Marni are going to be okay. Thanks to you.”
I threw my arms in the air as I let out a loud squeal. He laughed and continued speaking.
“The Prime Minister will be resigning tomorrow around noon at a special press conference and a coordinated operation taking down all six of the major pickpocket gangs will occur at the same time.
“The police department will be going through a major overhaul to rid itself of all the dirty cops who willingly took part in furthering the Prime Minister’s agenda. Siron finally came around to the fact that just bringing down the Prime Minister’s gangs wouldn’t afford the cleanup that was needed. She is in a secret meeting with key players in the government as we speak.”
“How did you get him away to interrogate him? He was talking to some police, and an ambulance was on its way when we left.” This had been bugging me for a while.
“Meet paramedic Martin.” I burst out laughing. “Unbelievable. You were one of the paramedics? Who were the cops?”
He named a few agents and explained how they put the Prime Minister in the ambulance and then took him to Division where he was told what was going to happen. “It’s not like we could use the recording you made, in open court. His confessions were made under certain duress. However, he could see that its release would condemn him either way and chose to resign.”
“Good choice.” I grinned.
“He’ll be in prison for a long, long time for a few murders he had his cronies commit. The President was clean. He had no idea about what the Prime Minister was doing.” My cheeks were hurting from smiling so big. I had to bite on them and make a fish face to relieve some of the ache.
“Now,” Jeremy said. “Fill me in on a few things that I’m not really clear about. How did you get out of the hospital?”
The smile flew from my lips and I spoke through my teeth, a bit embarrassed. “Summer.”
His head jerked back and he blinked in disbelief. “What?”
“Summer distracted the guards so I could sneak out of a bathroom window.”
“Hmm. That surprises me for some reason.”
I nodded. “It surprised me too.” I thought about filling him in on what happened on the
