The Thing About Love

by Julie James

  Just saying.

  “Isn’t this a coincidence?” she said, recovering from her surprise and putting on a smile for the benefit of her new boss as she walked into the office.

  From behind his desk, Nick pointed between her and John. “Do you two know each other?”

  “Jessica and I were in the same class at the Academy,” John explained. From the easygoing nature of his tone, he, too, didn’t intend to let the SAC in on their little personality clash.

  “Funny. Small world, huh?” Nick asked.

  “It sure is,” John said.

  “You can say that again,” Jessica agreed, at the same time.

  They looked at each other and chuckled, as if this were all just so funny. Ha ha ha, good times . . . Yeah, it would be a miracle if they made it through this assignment without throttling each other.

  “So,” Nick said, clapping his hands. “Since you two are already acquainted, I think we can just dive right in. Jessica, if you’ve had a chance to review the case file, why don’t you bring John up to speed?”

  “Of course.” She refocused her less-than-equanimous feelings for the person sitting next to her and got down to the task at hand. She was a professional, after all, and an experienced undercover agent to boot. She could fake playing nice with the best of them.

  Although she noted, for the record, that this dirty-hot, I-hang-with-unsavory-types look John had going on hardly screamed private equity investor.

  And she also noted, for the record, that she was glad there was not, in fact, an actual record of her thinking of John Shepherd as dirty-hot.

  Moving on.

  “The target is Patrick Blair, mayor of Jacksonville, Florida,” she began. “The son of a high school teacher and a Navy lieutenant, Blair attended law school at the University of Florida and, at age twenty-six, became the youngest city councilmember in Jacksonville history. The report the case agents sent over didn’t include a photograph, so I snagged one off the Internet this morning.” She handed one over to John. “A copy for your convenience, Agent Shepherd.”

  In response to her sweet tone, he threw her a look so dark and scowly she expected to hear an ominous boom of thunder outside.

  Trust me, big guy. The feeling’s mutual.

  “Four years later, Blair ran for mayor and lost by only three thousand votes to a retired judge running on a nonpartisan ballot,” she continued. “He then ran again in the next election with a campaign that emphasized his experience on the council and focused on Jacksonville’s economic growth. He won that race, becoming the second-youngest mayor of a top-twenty U.S. city. His popularity continued to rise, particularly after he sponsored legislation designed to revitalize key neighborhoods through investment by the private sector, and earlier this year he was reelected to a second term by a whopping eighty-five percent of the vote. By all accounts he’s quite charismatic and is especially popular among female voters.” Jessica smiled. “I’m sure that has nothing do with the fact that he’s single and was recently included in People magazine’s ‘Sexiest Politicians Alive’ edition.”

  John snorted, flipping through the file on his lap. “So what’s the catch?”

  “The catch is that Jacksonville’s golden boy is running a side business: taking bribes in exchange for political favors,” she said. “The investigation started eighteen months ago, after a local lobbyist approached agents in the Jacksonville office with a tip that another lobbyist, Anthony Morano, was arranging bribes for the mayor. The tip turned out to be a good one, and after two agents visited Morano at home and had a chat with him about the advantages of cooperating with the FBI when one has been caught conspiring to engage in honest services fraud, he flipped on Blair and agreed to wear a wire.

  “Through that, the Jacksonville agents learned that Blair has several real estate developers lining his pockets. And we’re not talking penny-ante stuff here; these guys are paying Blair upwards of fifty grand a pop in exchange for his assistance with various zoning and permit issues. It’s a nice little arrangement: For the right price, Blair makes a few phone calls to his friends on the city’s Land Use Committee and, voilà, all the red tape and delays the developer would normally face magically disappear.”

  “Is there any evidence these other city officials are on the take?” John asked, his eyes meeting Jessica’s.

  She paused, flashing back six years to the many times she’d seen that focused, determined gleam in his blue eyes. Except, around her, that look typically had been accompanied by an irritated tightening of his jaw.

  Ah, yes. There it was.

  “That was one of the questions I asked Agent Leavitt in Jacksonville when I called this morning to introduce myself,” Jessica said. “He says that, to their knowledge, Blair’s the only crooked one of the bunch. There’s no evidence that the other city officials are aware he’s making money off this scheme—from their perspective, they’re just helping out the mayor when he asks for a favor. Basically, being politicians.”

  “Do they have an estimate of how much bribe money Blair has raked in so far?” Nick asked Jessica.

  “Around five hundred thousand. But the one concern the U.S. Attorney’s office raised as a potential trial issue is the fact that, so far, all the individuals with firsthand knowledge of the bribes—Morano, plus the developers who’ve paid Blair off—are part of the scheme themselves. Once the arrests are made, we know how this will shake out: These guys will all turn on Blair in exchange for a deal. Which, while helpful, also leaves them open to impeachment on cross-examination that they’re just saying what the government wants in order to save their own skins.”

  “An issue that’s far less of a concern if the U.S. Attorney’s office also has testimony against Blair by two undercover agents with firsthand knowledge of the scheme,” Nick said.

  “Cue the two ‘shady Chicago business entrepreneurs,’” John said.

  Exactly. “The specifics of the assignment are all there,” Jessica said, pointing to the file John held. “You and I will pose as partners from a successful Chicago-based private equity firm interested in opening a restaurant in Jacksonville. Morano will set up a meeting with the mayor, under the guise that we’d like to discuss a few zoning and permitting issues with a property we have our eye on for the project. Then we go from there.”

  Nick rested his forearms on the desk. “I’ve already informed the Jacksonville office of your potential time restrictions,” he told John. “They’ve assured me that you and Jessica will be able to wrap this up in a handful of trips. Frankly, either Blair takes the bait or he doesn’t.”

  “I’ll get started on my undercover legend right away,” John said.

  “Good.” Nick grinned. “By the way, when I spoke to the SAC down in Jacksonville, he mentioned that, as part of your cover, they’re going to put you up at some swanky hotel on Ponte Vedra Beach. So when you two are drinking mai tais by the ocean and swapping stories about the good old days at the Academy, don’t forget who you can thank for this assignment.”

  Jessica and John laughed along as if that were just so darn hilarious. Ha ha, chuckle chuckle, ah . . . the “good old days” at the Academy.

  Yeah, they were so screwed.

  5

  John left the SAC’s office alone, seizing the opportunity to make his escape when Nick held Jessica back to ask how her first day had gone.

  He headed straight for the elevators and jabbed at the down button a little harder than necessary. Staring at the closed elevator doors, he mimicked her confident voice in his head.

  That was one of the questions I asked Agent Leavitt in Jacksonville when I called this morning to introduce myself.

  Of course she’d already taken charge and called the Jacksonville agents to introduce herself. And of course she already knew the case backward and forward despite the fact that she’d worked in the Chicago office for all of about, oh, five damn mi
nutes. That was Jessica Harlow doing her Jessica Harlow thing, because she put the special in special agent.

  Sure.

  “Shepherd.”

  Speak of the devil.

  Steeling himself, he turned around and smiled as she approached. “Yes, Agent Harlow. How can I be of service?”

  In response to his dry tone, she threw him a glare so cold it could’ve frozen all nine circles of Dante’s Hell. Fittingly, just nine of the many places he would rather be than stuck working with her on this investigation.

  “Look, I’m not thrilled about this, either.” Keeping her voice low, she came to a stop next to him at the elevator bank. “I thought you were supposed to be on the Hostage Rescue Team already.”

  “And I thought you were supposed to be in L.A.”

  There was a quick flash in her eyes before she shrugged off his question. “Change of plans.”

  The elevator arrived at their floor, and they both stepped inside. She hit the button for the seventh floor, where the public corruption squad was located. Standing on the opposite side, he pressed the button for floor five.

  They faced off as the doors shut. She folded her arms across her chest and studied him with those crystalline blue eyes that could so cleverly mask her emotions.

  As he knew well.

  “We’re going to have to figure this out,” she said. “We’re supposed to be business partners in this.”

  Thank you, yes, being a professional, he was aware of that. He took a step closer. “It’s called ‘undercover’ work, Harlow. If I can pretend to be a gun-buying, murder-for-hire thug, I think I can handle playing some rich investor type who wants to skirt a few measly zoning laws.” Even a rich investor type who was apparently masochistic enough to get in bed with the likes of her.

  Professionally speaking.

  “Measly zoning laws?” she repeated.

  Ooh, now he’d gone and pissed her off. How nice it was, really, that they could pick up like this, right where they’d left off.

  She drew in closer, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. He was over a foot taller than her, although he noticed that she was heightening a bit with those expensive-looking three-inch heels she wore.

  “Our target in this investigation is the mayor of the thirteenth-largest city in the United States. That’s a pretty big deal in my book.” She gestured to his facial scruff and hair. “And while I appreciate that this . . . Sons of Anarchy motif you’ve got going might ingratiate you with the gun-buying, murder-for-hire, organized crime thugs of the world, that’s not quite going to fly with this sting operation.”

  “‘Thirteenth-largest city in the United States’?” he scoffed. “Just how many hours did you spend reviewing the case files last night?”

  She smiled sweetly as the elevator arrived at her floor. “Enough to get the jump on you.”

  Then the doors sprang open, and she gave him a friendly wave, once again stepping into the role of Ms. Congeniality. “So glad we got to catch up like this, Agent Shepherd. We’ll talk again soon.”

  He watched her stride confidently down the hallway as the elevator doors closed between them.

  Enough to get the jump on you.

  Not for long, sweetheart.

  Time for him to get cracking on that case file.

  • • •

  “The Ponte Vedra Inn and Club? Sounds nice,” Tara said, from the living room. “Do they have a spa?”

  In the bedroom, Jessica looked herself over in the mirror attached to her closet door. “They do, but I doubt I’ll get to use it.”

  “Hey, if you’re supposed to be a successful businesswoman, then I say you get to do it up,” Tara called back.

  Tempting, although Jessica doubted the old But my character needed a warm bamboo massage excuse would fly with the Bureau’s bean counters in Pocatello, Idaho, where the finance division responsible for travel reimbursements was located. And now that she was single again, and living on a government salary, trips to a five-star resort spa weren’t exactly in her personal budget.

  She paused while looking into the mirror, suddenly remembering her twenty-ninth birthday, when Alex had arranged for her to have a whole day of services at a Beverly Hills day spa. They’d just gotten married and were still very much in the honeymoon phase, and when she’d come home eight hours later he’d acted like she’d been gone for eight weeks instead. With a hungry gleam in his eyes, he’d greeted her at the door with two glasses of sparkling wine and then had proceeded to strip off her—

  Well. Anyway. No use crying over spilled Prosecco.

  Taking a deep breath, she put on a smile and headed into the living room. “So. First impressions are key with these undercover ops. With that in mind, does this outfit say ‘private equity director’ to you?”

  While holding her glass of wine, Tara took in Jessica’s tan skirt suit and cream short-sleeve sweater. “Honey, that outfit doesn’t say much of anything. More like it politely whispers, ‘Hi, I’m boring.’” She cocked her head. “And possibly a little sexually frustrated.”

  Jessica gave her a look. Ha ha. Although that last part wasn’t entirely off the mark. “Remember, these are business meetings I’m going to.”

  “Yeah, but suits like that are for lawyers and accountants. If you’re supposed to be an entrepreneur, you need something that’s professional, but with a little more flash.”

  Fair enough. “Hold on, I think I know just the thing.” Jessica headed back into her bedroom. Probably, she was overanalyzing her wardrobe choices for this Jacksonville assignment. It was doubtful, particularly in a group of men, that anyone would notice if her character was dressed more conservatively than was the norm in the private equity world. But when it came to undercover work, she was something of a perfectionist, even with the smallest details. If she knew something was off, it didn’t matter whether anyone else noticed.

  “Lucky you, to be assigned such a fun investigation in your first week,” Tara said from the living room. “Sounds like the Chicago FBI crew has welcomed you with open arms.”

  An image of John’s scowling expression popped into her head. It’s called “undercover” work, Harlow.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “Most of them, anyway,” she grumbled.

  As she was belting her jacket, Tara popped her head in the doorway and nodded approvingly at the black slim-fit suit and fuchsia silk sleeveless top Jessica had changed into. “Now that, I like.”

  “I got it on sale at Saks.” The three-quarter-length sleeves of the jacket and skinny fuchsia belt were too trendy for her to wear to work, but she’d picked it up for social events since it was one of those rare outfits that covered her pistol and was actually cute.

  Tara took a seat on the bed. “Why did you say ‘most’ of the Chicago office has welcomed you? Did something happen?”

  Jessica yanked the skinny belt out of its loops as she started to undress. Something had happened, all right—or better yet, someone. “It’s not a big deal. Just this guy from my class at the Academy who hates me. Which is fine, since I’m not his biggest fan, either.”

  “A guy from the Academy?” Tara cocked her head. “You mean John Shepherd?”

  Jessica pulled back in surprise. “How do you know his name?”

  “Um, because you talked about him in quite a few e-mails you sent me while you were training.”

  “‘Quite a few’?” Jessica scoffed, thinking that was definitely an exaggeration. “I mean, I suppose I might have mentioned him offhandedly once or twice . . .”

  “Former Army Ranger, right? From Chicago, you said? Blond hair, blue eyes, built like Thor—”

  “Great, so you’re familiar,” Jessica cut in brightly, figuring they were getting a little off track here. “The point is, he’s back. Well, technically, I’m the one who’s back, but regardless, he works in the Chicago o
ffice now and as luck would have it”—and by luck, she meant a cruel, evil twist of fate—“he’s my partner in this undercover assignment.”

  Tara’s eyes widened. “Really?” She started laughing. “How’s that going to work?”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out myself,” Jessica muttered, as her cell phone chimed with a new text message. She walked over to the nightstand, picked up her phone, and saw that the message was from her brother, Finn.

  You do NOT want to date a surgeon. Huge egos.

  Her sister, Maya, also included in the group message, responded almost immediately. Your guy drives a Maserati. Yeah, he’s real salt of the earth.

  Jessica set her phone back down on the nightstand. Her two older siblings had been going back and forth like this all day. And while she normally was happy to join in the fray, on this particular subject she’d been adopting more of a keep-quiet-and-run-for-cover approach. “Maya and Finn are fighting over which one of them gets to set me up on a blind date.”

  Tara took a sip of her wine. “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Eh, after thirty-two years, I’m used to all the bickering between those two. I think it’s a twin thing.”

  Tara looked at her over her glass. “I meant, how do you feel about going on a date?”

  Yes, Jessica got that, she’d just been going for a little humor. A deflection tool, her psychologist mother would say, along with her tendency to get a wee bit sarcastic when feeling defensive. “The divorce is final, so I guess it’s time to get back out there.” Slowly get out there, she emphasized in her head, while taking a seat on the bed next to Tara. “But a setup with one of these alleged Mr. Perfects my brother and sister want me to meet seems so . . . official.” She jokingly rolled her eyes. “Plus, what if I actually like one of the guys? For the rest of my life, I’d have to live with the acknowledgment that either Finn or Maya was right.”

  Sweetie, you’re deflecting again.

  I know, Mom, thanks.

  “You already know what I’m going to tell you,” Tara said. “The hell with Mr. Perfect. You should be having fun right now, with some hot Mr. Wrong that you will shamelessly use for dirty, no-strings-attached rebound sex until you both realize your time together has run its course and part ways on guilt-free, wholly amicable terms.”