Any Way You Want Me

by Jamie Sobrato

“So much for putting an end to the rumors.” The wry smile she wore suggested she accepted their plight as inescapable now.

  “I’ll tell Drew that was our farewell kiss, and that we’re finished. No more making out in the break room.”

  “Or you could tell him I had a potato chip stuck in my throat and you were trying to remove it with your tongue.” Her laugh cut through the tension in the room.

  “Have you ever had an office affair before?” Alex asked.

  “No. This is my first and last.”

  The determination in her voice should have been some relief to him, but instead it left him feeling disappointed.

  He nodded as if he knew just how she felt.

  “Guess I’d better get back out to my desk before they send another spy in here,” she said, flashing a tired smile as she headed for the door.

  He couldn’t keep going like this. He’d lied to Yasmine, and he didn’t have it in him to tell her the truth. Not so soon on the heels of their lovemaking. He just needed to get away from her, get some physical and emotional distance, and then he’d be able to think clearly. Decide what to do next.

  Figure out where to go and what to do after giving up what he feared he wanted most in life.

  BY THE END OF THE WORKDAY Tuesday, Alex knew he had to leave Virtual Active, and the sooner the better. He couldn’t keep living in the middle of this lie.

  The decision had been brewing in his subconscious since last night, and being so close to Yasmine today, while knowing he should stay away from her, solidified it. Plus, there were more practical concerns, such as the fact that he’d uncovered everything he could about her hacking activities or lack thereof, and his case was as closed as it would ever be. Oh, and he couldn't forget that if he didn’t turn his attention back to his information security business, it was going to go under before it had really gotten started.

  He peered in the door of his supervisor’s office and saw that he was free, so he gave a quick knock.

  “Hey, Kyle, what’s up?” Bryan Dermott asked when he looked up from his computer.

  “You have a minute to talk?”

  “Sure, come on in.”

  Alex sat on the edge of the nearest chair. “I just wanted to let you know I don’t think this job is the right fit for me, and I’m putting in my notice to leave.”

  “Wow. Um, this is rather sudden. I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with those rumors that have been flying around here today.”

  “No, the rumors are completely false,” Alex said. “It’s a personal decision, based purely on what I’m looking for in a job.”

  “Fair enough. If you’re not happy with the work, you’re not happy.”

  “Thanks for understanding,” he said, glad to at least be getting this obstacle out of his way. Without the job, there’d be at least that distance between him and Yasmine.

  “Well, since you just started a few weeks ago, and you haven’t taken on that big a workload yet, we’re not going to be hurting if you leave today.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  Bryan nodded. “You don’t have to bother with two weeks’ notice. Go ahead and clear out your desk, and we’ll call this your last day.”

  This was the part where Alex was supposed to feel secretly relieved and thrilled, but a knot formed in his gut instead. It was time to move on, time to put the case behind him, time to focus on his own life and forget about all things related to Yasmine Talbot.

  He left Bryan’s office and walked through the aisles of cubicles, this time wishing he could avoid Yasmine’s—an odd feeling after having spent the past weeks coming up with excuse after excuse to walk by her desk.

  She looked up from her work and saw him as he neared.

  “Hey,” he said, assuming the posture of a guy who’d just been let go.

  Luckily, most of the people who sat near her had just left for a training session and wouldn’t be around to hear him confess his job “loss.”

  Her expression, distracted and vague, made it clear he’d interrupted her in the middle of some serious code slinging. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Today’s my last day here.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What happened?”

  “I’m not as qualified for the job as I thought I was.”

  “But you just started. It takes time to learn everything.”

  “Honestly, I’m not that into it. I need a job I feel passionate about.”

  Two little creases formed between her eyebrows, and he wished he could reach out and smooth them.

  “I guess I can understand that. This just seems so sudden—Wait a minute. This doesn’t have anything to do with me, does it?”

  “Of course not. It’s a career decision.”

  Which sounded about as likely as claiming sleeping with her in the first place had been a career decision.

  She sat speechless for a few moments, before he filled in the silence for her.

  “I swear this has nothing to do with you. Ever since I finished training, I’ve been feeling like I was in the wrong job, and a talk I just had with Bryan Dermott confirmed it.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  He shruggedd. “I’m still considering my options.”

  She blinked, then looked at him as if she knew there was something he wasn’t telling her. “I’ll miss seeing you around here,” she finally said. “You really added some interest to our office landscape.”

  “I’ll miss seeing you, too,” he said, wondering if this would be the last time.

  Would he have the willpower to stay away? Would she?

  “So, is this it?” Yasmine asked, looking a little unsure of herself for once.

  “‘It’ as in the last time we see each other?”

  “Yeah.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  Against all his better sense, he wanted her to say no.

  “No,” she said, answering his prayers.

  “Neither do I.”

  “Then I’ll call you. Or you call me, okay?”

  Alex nodded and smiled. “Okay.”

  They stared at each other for a moment too long, something big and uncomfortable hanging in the air between them. The unstated fact that their relationship didn’t have a destination. It was a bus on the road to nowhere, and neither of them wanted to get off.

  13

  ALEX HAD BEEN PUTTING OFF clients for weeks. Now, with no fake day job to distract him, he could finally get down to business and take care of the people who could keep him afloat financially. The problem was, work was the last thing on his mind.

  He’d been sitting at his desk all morning, trying like hell to concentrate and only occasionally succeeding. He seemed to be a much greater success at catching up on his e-mail, filing papers that could have waited to be filed, and eliminating every dust particle from the surface of his desk.

  It didn’t help that he was working at home, and the TV was only a room away, beckoning with the promise of Seinfeld reruns and twenty-four-hour news. Not only that, but he’d made numerous trips to the kitchen, coming back to his desk with chips, a ham sandwich, a popsicle, too many cups of coffee and now an ill-thought-out bowl of cereal that had resulted in milk droplets on his keyboard.

  At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to fit through his office door in another month, and his big fat lie of an investigation would be the least of his worries.

  He finally decided that the only way he was going to get his mind off Yasmine was to give the whole issue some formal closure, so he opened his file on her and started typing notes on his conclusions about her case. There really wasn’t much to type. He’d explored every avenue investigating her, and there was no evidence that she’d engaged in any form of cyber crime—messing with the terrorists wasn’t really criminal—since her release from juvenile prison.

  The only question left in his mind was, why did any of his former colleagues at the FBI think she was guilty
of hacking? Likely because they were under pressure to produce some suspects in a world where the smart criminals were incredibly hard to catch. It was so easy to go incognito on the Internet, ten criminals got away for every one the FBI’s cyber crime unit caught.

  Alex had learned to accept that frustration as part of the job, but not everyone could.

  And then there was Ty Connelly. Alex’s subconscious kept circling back to him, wondering how he fit into the case. Ty had headed up the witch hunt against Yasmine. There was something about the whole situation that Alex was missing, some piece of the puzzle he couldn’t find.

  He had to talk to Ty. He couldn’t put his finger on any one reason, but if nothing else, he’d turn over his notes on Yasmine’s case to the agent and let him see for himself how wrong he’d been about her. He picked up the phone and dialed the number to the FBI office that he still knew by heart, and a few minutes later he had an afternoon meeting set up at a restaurant that was midway between their two locations.

  He drove to the meeting filled with a dull ache, both relieved and unnerved that he’d gotten nowhere with the case. When he reached the North Beach restaurant, he found Ty already waiting for him inside. They shook hands, exchanged greetings, then sat across from each other.

  “I ordered you a cup of coffee. Hope that’s okay,” Ty said, nodding at the full cup on the table.

  “Thanks, man.”

  “So what’s been going on with you?”

  Alex probably should have finessed the situation, engaged in a little small talk before going straight to business, but instead, he pushed the file on Yasmine across the table to Ty. “This is what’s been going on with me.”

  Alex sipped the black coffee and then set the cup down as Ty scanned the notes.

  Around them, the noise from the late lunch crowd in the restaurant created a comfortable din that ensured no one else was likely to hear their conversation, and the scents of coffee and unidentifiable foods filled the air. Instead of staring at Ty, who looked a little heavier than the last time he’d seen him, and a little more unkempt, Alex took note of the other customers in the restaurant. They were almost uniformly well-dressed, upwardly mobile pretty people.

  “I thought you’d given this up, man,” Ty finally said when he finished reading.

  Alex shrugged. “I gave up the job, but that doesn’t mean all my business was finished. I had this one loose end to tie up, and now I’m done.”

  “That’s not the way it works, and you know it.”

  “There’s an exception to every rule. I know this case better than anyone, and simply handing over my files incomplete would have been irresponsible.”

  Ty flipped back to the photo of Yasmine on the first page and eyed it appreciatively, then shot Alex a look. “Is that really why you kept pursuing this case?”

  “My reasons don’t matter. What matters is, I figured out Yasmine Talbot has had no recent contact with The Underground. I think it’s possible someone’s trying to frame her—could be someone within the FBI.”

  He watched Ty’s reaction, looking for something—anything.

  “Damn. That’s a serious accusation. Where’s your proof?” Ty said, appropriately skeptical.

  “That’s the thing. There isn’t any solid proof, and I don’t know what anyone’s motive would be. It’s just a hunch, and I thought if I was going to take anything as shaky as a hunch to someone, it should be you.”

  “Thanks for bringing this to me. I’ll look into it.” He tucked the papers into his briefcase. “How’s civilian life treating you?”

  “It’s not bad. I don’t miss being an agent like I thought I would.”

  And, he realized for the first time that it was true. He hadn’t missed a minute of the bureaucracy, the endless paperwork, the constant battle for staffing and funding.

  “You got the right idea, man. The private sector is where it’s at. Let me know if you’re ever looking for a business partner.”

  “You? Leave the Bureau?”

  Ty sipped his coffee, then sighed. “What can I say? I’m getting tired of all the crap. You can’t serve twenty years without feeling a little burned out.”

  “I hear you.”

  “So you and this Yasmine chick—you finally hook up? Is that how you got your information?”

  There was the question Alex had hoped like hell to avoid.

  “I’m not going to lie. We were involved for a short while.”

  “Now there’s an investigative method you can’t use when you carry an FBI badge. Yet another advantage of going civilian.”

  Alex wanted to protest, but he’d asked for it. He’d behaved reprehensibly, and there was no point denying it.

  “I can’t say I’ll let it happen again. It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “Hey, man, I bet she’s one of the hottest little mistakes you’ll ever make.”

  Alex looked out at the passing traffic, wishing he were anywhere but here bullshitting about the woman who confused him more than anything or anyone else. He didn’t like hearing Ty sum up their relationship the way he had.

  “You ever hear from Kinsey?” Ronald Kinsey had been dismissed from the same field office as Alex two days after Alex’s resignation. Caught in the same fallout as Alex, he’d been accused of tampering with case evidence, among other lesser infractions.

  “Not a word from him.”

  Alex had wondered if Kinsey had been the one trying to pin guilt on Yasmine, but he’d probably never know now.

  “Listen, it’s been good talking. I’ll look into this issue with Talbot. Thanks for bringing it to me.”

  “You’ll let me know if you come up with anything?”

  “As soon as I’m able to talk, I will. It’s the least I can do.”

  Alex left the restaurant not exactly feeling the sense of closure he’d hoped to find, but at least he had some hope now that he had finally done the right thing. He sat in his car and waited for Ty to leave, then followed him from a few car lengths, curious to see where Ty would go next. He was relieved to see that his former colleague went straight to the office. And he realized as he sat in his car staring at the FBI building in which he’d once worked that this was truly the end.

  Case closed. He’d be a lunatic to continue searching for clues that weren’t there, following hunches based on no solid facts.

  He said a silent goodbye to his old life, pulled out into traffic and drove away.

  ONLY TWO DAYS after Alex had left Virtual Active, Yasmine was having serious withdrawal symptoms. She had trouble sleeping, she’d been eating too much, and she couldn’t stop replaying their weekend together in her head.

  Okay, sure, they shouldn’t see each other anymore, so technically, his leaving had been a good thing.

  But tell that to her body. And her heart.

  Her heart had decided, without consulting her brain, that Kyle was the man for her and that she was falling head over heels in love. For once she was pretty damn sure she’d found a guy who was attracted to her—all of her, and not just her appearance.

  Not in the mood for exercise or explanations about why her office hottie had disappeared, Yasmine had tried every possible excuse to get out of going to Pilates class with Cass, but in the end she’d lost the argument.

  Now, though, having spent the past few days with a growing sense of unease, she was just glad for Cass’s company. Another heavy-breathing phone call in the middle of the night two nights ago had set her nerves on edge. At first she’d thought Kyle was calling to have phone sex, but after a minute had passed and all she’d heard was breathing, she realized it definitely wasn’t Kyle. It was the same creep who’d been calling her all along.

  And last night she’d watched a car pull up outside her apartment—the same white car she’d seen there before—then sit for hours without anyone getting out, as far as she could tell. She’d gotten another phone call, this one silent, and she couldn’t help wondering if it had come from the mystery car. She was probably just b
eing paranoid.

  She and Cass sat on their mats on the glossy wood floors of Studio Fitness and waited for the lithe, ridiculously flexible instructor named Noni to appear and lead them through a series of exercises that promised to leave Yasmine unable to take deep breaths without feeling it in her abs for several days.

  “What is it with you and your opposition to exercise?”

  “It’s not exercise I dislike so much as it is this form of exercise. I mean, all this damn rolling and crunching—it’s just not healthy,” Yasmine whispered.

  “Look around you. Do these people not look healthy?”

  “Please name one occasion where I’ll ever need to fold myself in half and touch my toes to the floor over my head.”

  “That’s not the point, but I can think of interesting uses for that pose.”

  Cass had been looking awfully smug this evening, and Yasmine had a feeling it was related to Drew, who’d seemed dreamy and distracted all week—and hadn’t wanted to say a word about his date with Cass.

  Noni was in her place at the head of the class now, and they started their warm-up breathing, which always bored the hell out of Yasmine. She pretended to go along with the exercises while she whispered to Cass, “When are you going to give me the scoop on Drew?”

  A mysterious half smile played on her lips. “That’s going to take a while. You’ll have to wait for dinner to hear the complete story.”

  “Does that mean you like him?”

  “Patience, my dear.”

  Twenty minutes into the exercise routine, Yasmine was ready to sneak out and grab a doughnut, but Cass was all about the floor work. She may not be a stripper anymore, but she still acted as though she might have to bare her ass to a roomful of men at any given moment. Yasmine didn’t see the point of spending her whole life worrying about a few extra pounds here or there.

  “Imagine your spine elongating as you reach up toward the sky,” Noni was saying, as Yasmine tried to decide if she was more in the mood for Thai food or Mexican.

  Cass would never go for Mexican after a workout, and sure enough, another half hour later when they were dressing in the locker room, she scoffed at the very idea.