She froze. Her fingers slipped away from his neck. “What?” she nearly whispered.
“I’m not an FBI agent.”
She squinted at him. “What?”
He licked his lips. “I’m—”
“I heard you.” She took a giant step back. Her thoughts were swirling in a tsunami, but one rose to the top. “Ifuckingknew you weren’t a cop.”
“Yes, your cop-dar is excellent.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
His chest rose and fell. “I figured. If it helps at all, I decided I was going to come clean while you were at the storage unit.”
“It does not, in fact, help.”
Where had he gotten that very legitimate-looking badge?
Why the ruse?
Who was this man she’d kissed?
You remain a terrible man magnet, it seems.
“Who the fuckareyou?”
Krish did not blame Sejal one bit for being angry, but he really wished they could have had this conversation when he hadn’t just been attacked by—potentially—a Cobra operative in a ritzy hotel. His brain was short-circuiting, and his throat was aching.
But he owed her an apology and an explanation. “My name’sKrish Anand. I lied about being an FBI agent, yes, but everything else was true.”
“Who the fuck is Avi? Were you catfishing when you called me all those months ago?”
“Avi’s my brother. He’s the FBI agent. And he did call you. I am, obviously, not him.”
“I probably should have figured out when you asked me to keep it on the DL from your own mother.” She closed her eyes. “Oh my God. So much makes sense now. She straight up said,You’re not like your brother, Avi. I thought she was calling you by your legal name, not identifying Avi as your brother! Did you tell her what you were up to?”
“No.” It was pure luck, in a way, that his mother was so angry with his brother and therefore hadn’t talked about him in front of Sejal.
She let out a small squeal of fury. “Wait. Your scar. You said you got it as a kid.”
Krish touched his face. “I did.”
Sejal’s jaw clenched. “I should have realized right then and there. That photo, you didn’t have a scar in it. I knew when you showed it to me, it didn’t look like you, but I let you gaslight me into thinking you suddenly got bigger and hotter at some point in the last ten years.”
Shedefinitely doesnot mean the hotter part right now.“I honestly didn’t even realize I slipped up when I told you that. I’m really not used to subterfuge.”
I did lie to you, but I’m not good at it, see?
It wasn’t a great defense.
“What do you really do?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m a librarian.”
She sank into the chair Sunil had vacated like he’d deflated her. “A librarian.”
“At Georgetown, yes.” He grimaced. “Lying felt like the only way I could convince you to help me. Your file didn’t exactly showcase a demonstrated respect for librarians.”
