Page 44 of Four Cards Exposed

“This?”

“Being Jay,” she said, simply.

He nodded.

“You put your life on hold every time you go undercover. Would Jay do this? Would Jay do that? And this time, the stakes are even higher.” He shrugged.

“Because I’m here, and because I’m a woman?” she asked through clenched teeth.

“Because you're here,” James agreed. “Because I vowed to protect you. Because the thought of something happening to you tears me apart.”

Susan took a deep breath and took a sip from the instant coffee.

“I know you don’t mean to sound like a patriarchal asshole,” she finally said.

James snorted. “No. I don’t. I know you can take care of yourself, Susan. But these men are dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt. As Milena, you’re in danger every day. If somebody finds out you’re not who you say you are …”

“It’s no different from if somebody finds out who you are,” she interrupted impatiently.

“We need to be pragmatic about this, Susan.”

“Ooh. Pragmatic. What every woman wants to hear after a one-night stand.”

James frowned. “This wasn’t a one-night stand.”

Susan’s heart skipped a beat. Then another. She tensed, remembering how, in the last few months, her heart had started doing odd, unexpected things. A skipped beat here. A flutter there. She’d gone to the hospital once, convinced she was having a heart attack, and had been diagnosed instead with that most common of ailments—a panic attack. Most likely brought on by the trauma she’d experienced, the doctors said.

This, however, was a very different feeling. She recognized the faster heartbeat that stemmed from excitement, not from fear.

Not a one-night stand.

What else could it be, if not a one-night stand?

Could the two of us together—

“This wasn’t a one-night stand. Jay and Milena slept together last night, and they’re not going to hide it.”

Susan schooled her face into what she hoped was a neutral expression, even as her heart fell down to what felt like a spot near her liver.

Of course.

James wasn’t talking about them.

He wanted their undercover persona to date. It was a way to keep her close, more than anything else.

Pragmatic.

“You want Jay and Milena to start a relationship.”

“We’ll stick to that story,” he said, nodding to himself.

Susan’s molars ground so hard it hurt. “You know, we could have just talked about this. You didn’t need to spend half of the night with your dick inside me.”

James leaned back as if she’d slapped him. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times, like a fish out of water.

Finally, Special Agent Ramsay is without words.

“No,” he stammered, finally. “That’s not what I—“