She couldn’t face him when she said, “Do we need to compare notes?”
“What notes?” The words were like ice. She hoped he broke a tooth.
“It’s called a cover, King. They taught us about them. At spy school.”
“Don’t call it...” She watched the shadow shake its head. “We have our cover.”
She flicked on the reading light over his seat and Alex watched him squint against the glare. “Wehada cover. Nine years ago. It’s not like it’s fresh on our—”
“Eight,” he corrected.
“What?”
King looked her dead in the eye and she wished she could turn the light off. Grab a parachute and jump. She wanted to turn the hourglass over and make time run the other way, because his eyes were as dark as the voice that said, “It was eight years, four months, and five days ago. And I remember every word.”
The plane hit a patch of rough air and dipped suddenly. Or maybe Alex’s stomach did that all on its own, but that didn’t change the fact that she had to steady herself as she dropped onto the armrest of the seat across the aisle.
“Yay. Congratulations. I’m sure if they test us on the timeline, we’ll be set.”
“Indeed.” He opened a compartment and pulled out a blanket, opened it with a flick of his wrist.
“Do we have kids?”
“What?” Oh, that got his attention.
“They’re going to ask. About that. And about a million more things and—”
“Oh, I stand corrected, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to convince people that ours is a marriage in trouble.”
But he still didn’t get it. Michael Kingsley was, without a doubt, the most brilliant person she had ever known. He was also the dumbest, and it was all Alex could do not to roll her eyes.
“The problem isn’t that eight years, four months, and five days have passed and we still hate each other, Kingsley.” She stood and started down the narrow aisle. “The problem will be getting anyone to believe we made it this long.”
She heard him roll over, call out, “They believed us just fine the last time.”
But Alex had to stop. And remember.
“That was before.”
He pushed up on an elbow and looked at her. “Before what?”
He knew. He knew, but he was going to make her say it.
Alex turned off the light. “Before Scotland.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Eight Years Ago
Somewhere off the Coast of Portugal
Alex
“I’m going to kill her.”
Alex shouldn’t have gotten so much pleasure out of another person’s suffering, but she’d spent the last two years having the CIA burn away all of her compassion, so she thought she might as well kick back and relish the way King twisted and squirmed.
He’d already banged his head on the low ceiling of the jet, and his long legs didn’t exactly fit under the table that sat between them. The plane was lavish but small, just a (CIA-issued) pilot in the cockpit and four club chairs in middle—facing each other two by two. A sofa stretched across the back, but Alex sat by the window, legs crossed, manicured fingers drumming on the table in front of her, watching King shift, trying to get comfortable.
