by Mia Downing
Aaron smiled sleepily from behind the fake glasses he wore whenever he travelled. He had explained the disguise worked for super heroes and the women seemed to ignore him. Silly, but that was her Aaron. She wanted nothing more than to kiss the silly, sleepy punk in front of Jake. Why couldn’t she, though? Jake knew, and in a few moments, Aaron would no longer be her charge. He’d be…her partner? So she kissed him, enjoying the quick warmth of his lips.
They filed out, collected luggage, and found the car Chase had waiting for them. The plan was to regroup, rest, and be in Chase’s office at nine the next morning. Jake was thrilled to be home, looking like a boy about to get presents from Father Christmas. Stupid man, thinking with his cock.
The car dropped off Jake first. Despite the anger she still felt toward Jake, she leaned and kissed his cheek. She knew he was at odds with Chase about this, too. She’d heard him yelling over the phone earlier. “I love you, you know. Even if you lied to me.”
He gave her a puzzled grin. “I love you, too, sweetheart. But I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Shit, don’t let him suspect. “I know. I just felt bad for treating you poorly. I realize it’s the job, not how you feel about me.”
He cupped her cheek with his large hand, his thumb brushing her cheekbone in a wide sweep. Yes, he loved her. She saw it in his eyes, the way they softened. Different than how Aaron looked at her, though. A different…feeling. “I’d move the moon for you if I could.”
“I know.” She gave him an impish smile. “Try not to break anything when you take Tia.”
“Like the door?” Jake slid along the seat to the door, his grin sly. “My doors are a lot stronger than Aaron’s.”
“Asshole,” Aaron muttered.
“Jake!” She couldn’t will the blush away.
“Not my fault you didn’t check to see if I was home before you started in. I had to come back. Better than bad porn, you two kids are. I just needed a mime to walk in with popcorn.”
“I hope she’s got the curse,” Charlotte hissed and shoved him out. He knew she hated mimes, and her boys often wished for mimes to bring them things to piss her off.
“Won’t stop me. Be good, children.” Jake shut the door, and after he gathered his luggage, the car pulled away.
“Now I know why I never had sex as a teen. I would have died from embarrassment.” Aaron took a deep breath and looked at her expectantly. “So now what.”
She hesitated. This was her chance to set him free. “Are you sure you want to do this? I can have the car turn around.”
“Never been surer in my life.”
She made the mental leap into the deep end of the pool, grasping Aaron’s hand. She’d pay dearly for this from Chase and Jake, pay double in hell for dragging Aaron along when she finally died. “Then we’re off to my place for a makeover, reward sex, and back to the airport. Our flight leaves at ten.”
“Hot damn, reward sex.” Aaron gave her a huge, satisfied grin and kissed her quickly. “Sounds like I’ll be getting my beauty rest on the plane.”
****
Aaron hadn’t known what to expect from Charlotte’s apartment. He didn’t expect this, a home so feminine he wanted to check his bags elsewhere, afraid estrogen would overtake his testosterone and turn him girly. Everything was dainty, lacy, frilly. White. Lots of white, green, and floral. Thank God, no pink. He set his bag on the floor next to the couch and inhaled. It all smelled faintly of her, citrus and flowers, so staying here had to be okay.
“Love,” she said as she shut a closet door behind her with a foot, her arms loaded with little boxes and things. “You sure you want to do this? With me?”
“I’ll do whatever you want. Within reason.” No way in hell was she going alone, but he wasn’t a fool.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Last chance. I can send you off to Jake’s if you’re having second thoughts.”
“I’m yours.”
She nodded once and gave him the spy camp instructor look, one that meant he’d be whipped into some form of shape. “Then you need a haircut and a color. You’re going to become Seth Gold.” She chucked an envelope on the table in front of him.
“How—”
“One of Jake’s aliases I lifted from his bag before we left. Thank goodness you look like him. If we cut your hair and go a bit blonder, you’ll pass nicely. I don’t want you going as yourself, in case reporters check. You need to memorize this information. Sit.”
He sat and glanced at the packet—driver’s license, passport, birth certificate, library card? Chase had a weird sense of humor. “And you?”
She combed a few strokes, got her scissors, and began snipping. “I have a zillion aliases to choose from. I’ll go with Kim Davenport.” But she paused. “We have a huge problem.”
“What? You didn’t fuck up my hair, did you?” He pictured a huge bald spot and fought a shudder.
“No, silly.” She cuffed his shoulder. “The problem is, no matter what alias I go under Chase is going to find out. I don’t have anything that he hasn’t issued. I don’t have a real identity. All of my credit cards are linked to those aliases. I have cash, and I have access to more in England that he can’t trace. But we probably have an eight hour lead time before he knows what I’m up to.”
“That should put us firmly in London.”
“Yes.”
“So we deal with Chase when he figures out we’re not doing this his way.”
She hesitated, fingering a length of his hair, her breasts pressed against the back of his head. “If we could win him to our side, it would make things go easier.”
“Then we’ll try that option.”
She hesitated again. “He’ll make me pay when I come home.”
She sounded like a kid afraid of pissing off her big brother. In a way, Chase was probably that and more to her. As much of a tough girl as Charlotte was, down deep she wanted approval, just like everyone else. How nice to know she was still human in some ways. “I’ll pay with you, okay? We’re partners.”
“Okay.” She seemed less stressed and started cutting again. “But he’ll make you run. That’s the standard punishment. We’ll probably earn a trip around the equator and then some for this.”
“Then I buy new sneakers. I’m with you one hundred percent.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She concentrated, her hands flying over his head, the scissors snipping here and there. A bit later, she made a satisfied noise and handed him a mirror. “What do you think?”
Aaron cautiously peeked. His hair was shorter in the back, a little longer in the front, classy yet easy to deal with. She’d done a damned good job. “Wow. I look like Jake before Jake became me.”
“That’s the point. Now to lighten you up.”
Aaron was used to being bleached, dyed, and primped. Usually, he hated it. But her tits brushed his back and arm, and the way her floral scent invaded his nostrils made it worth it. She told him a few spy stories as she bleached him, her awe of Jake and Chase still very ripe in her voice despite her dislike for them at this moment.
“They teach you this hair stuff in spy school?” he asked as she worked on applying the color to his hair.
“No. My mother was a hairdresser. She thought it would be a useful talent for me to learn. I spent summers doing exactly this to make extra money for university. I really enjoyed it. I cut Chase and Jake’s hair all the time, Kate and Tia sometimes, too.”
He never pictured her in a salon as a kid or being hairdresser to the spy team. Nor did he picture Danger Girl having a family who once loved her. Dragons were hatched, but he supposed a dragon would have a family, too. “Your parents alive? Any siblings?”
“Yes,” she said, surprising the shit out of him. He never really expected an answer. “My mum bought the salon she worked at, my dad is still manager at the bank. My sister married a few years back and has a kid—boy.”
He felt guilty. There was nothing stopping him from seeing his own mother or Paul yet he avoi
ded them both. “Have you ever gone and spied on them?”
“Yes, a few times, but it hurts so much. I had Chase set up a fund for them after my old self died. They get an income from it. We faked that it was a settlement from the gas company. I make enough money now that I can spare it.” She hesitated a moment, then her hands continued working. “I went and saw my gravesite.”
“That must have been weird.”
“I left myself flowers.” She shrugged against his back, her breasts bobbing. “I feel like I died then, you know? I’m not at all like Abigail any longer. Doomsday changed everything, and not just my career path. For example, I was a vegan before, but the only thing the boys could get me to eat was cheeseburgers in the beginning, if I ate at all. Just weird things like that.”
Abigail. That had been her name before. “Did they call you Abbey? Or just Abigail.”
“Both. I was Abigail Rothschild. The boys still call me Abbey now and then. They forget, though I don’t. I’m just Charlotte in my mind.” She set the timer on the stove and sat in the chair next to him.
“Is it hard, being two people?”
“No, because I don’t remember a lot of things, not from that life. I remember my childhood and everything up until I met John. From there I have a huge gap around doomsday. I remember a little, and I know what the boys told me. But I don’t remember much about my life or my marriage or work. Yet, if you asked me, I could tell you my phone number, my parents’ numbers. I know my old boss’s codes to his safe, his security codes to the house. Weird things. The therapist said I’ll either remember more or I won’t.”
“You blocked stuff out.”
“That’s what the therapist thought.” She leaned forward and inhaled, wrinkling her nose. “You’re going to be stinky.”
“I took off that other shirt before you started. You can sniff that.”
“You’re too kind.” But she kissed his lips and started cleaning up. “In a bit, you’ll be truly Seth Gold, and I can give you reward sex for your excellent conduct on the plane.”
“I slept. It’s hard to be bad when you sleep.” He loved how she bustled around the kitchen, a flurry of grace and efficiency. “You didn’t, though. Sleep.”
“No.” She turned, her expression guarded. “I’ll have to take a sleeping pill tonight on our flight. Will you watch over me? You can sleep, of course. But I won’t wake up.”
“Of course. This is because of the nightmares?”
A flush of pink crept up her neck. “Yes. I’ve never had one on a plane, but I don’t want to start, and I’m tired.”
If she could take a sleeping pill now… “This means I’m no longer your job.”
“No.” She stared at him with large eyes, as if contemplating the role change, just like he was. “But every partnership has a leader, and I’m it. So don’t think you’re in charge, punk.”
“I won’t.” But the idea of watching over her made his ego swell.
The timer went off, and he stood, ready to rinse the color. “So when we have sex in a few minutes, it will be you, loving me, because you’re you. Not for sex camp.” He liked the sound of that.
“That sounded really sappy, Aaron.”
“Sorry.” He fought to amend the statement, because they weren’t in the air yet. She could still ditch him. “How about it will be you fucking me, because I’m me?”
She grinned and swooped in to kiss him. “That’s much better.”
****
“Seth Gold is an amazing lover,” Charlotte informed Aaron much later as she cuddled against his chest, liking way too much the way his skin felt pressed to hers.
She’d let him be on top as his reward, though he still had to wear a condom. It was lazy sex, nothing like what they had experienced the night before, but still perfect, lots of skin on skin and kissing. She needed that as much as she needed him, though she refused to lump it in with lovemaking.
Aaron held her against him, her cheek on his chest, his lips skimming her temple, their favorite position after sex. His hand brushed her shoulder in a lazy caress. “I know nothing about you besides you eat more than a third-world nation and you’ve killed more people than I’ve fucked.”
She stopped drawing circles on his chest. “I shared about my family.”
“That’s still not you, not anymore.”
“Then I’ll tell you something.” She didn’t want to share but suddenly felt she had to. He wasn’t work any longer, but what was he? Her friend, yes, with benefits. Lover if she wanted to get sappy. Partner if she listened to him. He deserved to know more, and she should probably tell him the truth, so if he wanted to bail on her, he could do it now.
“Purple is my favorite color, but you know that. If Chase would let me, I’d pierce my belly and my nose and have a streak of purple in my hair. I hate tattoos except for my wrist one. I hate shrimp, but I love scallops, broiled in butter. I want to grow roses and live on a lake or a farm or in a tree house, anywhere but an apartment. I want a little dog I can dress in clothes. But it can’t yip, or I will kill it.”
“Clothes?”
“Yes. A little leather jacket.” She never told anyone the clothes were because she wanted a baby of her own so badly. If she could dress a dog, maybe it would feed that sad need. That same sad part of her wanted to kill the dog so she didn’t have to face the little clothes. Sad and sick, she was.
“Little dogs yip.”
“I know. That’s why I don’t have one.”
He chuckled. “You are an eclectic woman, Charlotte. Anything else?”
“I hate spiders, crabs, and mimes.” She hesitated, and made the leap into waters she’d never travelled with anyone before. Jake and Chase knew and had told their women. She’d never shared, even with her therapist. “I can’t have kids.”
His hand froze in mid-stroke down her hair. He swallowed. “Is that why you said you didn’t like kids?”
“Yes. I can’t bear to be near kids anymore. Not because I don’t like them. It’s because I want them so badly.” His hand resumed stroking, and he kissed her forehead. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? Unless this was a choice?”
“No.” She was sorry because it was just one more reason why he couldn’t love her. He’d want kids, little cocky punks of his flesh. All Andersons did, though somehow they avoided illegitimate children in their whoring days. Jake couldn’t wait to knock up Tia.
“I assumed you’d had a C-section because my mom has the same scar. I guess that took care of the kid factor, too?”
The punk was too observant. It was so hard just to tell him, just to spit it all out. “I didn’t have a C-section, but yes, that took care of the kid factor.”
“Can I go out on a limb and guess that the kid factor and the deceased husband have something to do with doomsday?”
Fear churned in her stomach. She hated talking about that day, but his arms were a safe haven to share from. He had a right to know. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and never have to say a thing, but instead, she whispered, “I should tell you, I guess. About doomsday.”
“Only if you want, Char. I don’t need to know.”
But she knew her nosy punk would trade his two elephants and a chicken to know about her baggage. “If you’re going to run across an ocean with me on a covert operation that will leave your brother wanting to kick your ass, I think you should know why.”
“Okay. Then tell me.”
She took a deep breath, one designed to quiet her pounding heart. What would he think of her when she was done?
“Six years ago I was Abigail Rothschild, a married girl working as a personal assistant for Albert Reese, an important man in Parliament. One day, I was approached by English intelligence agents about becoming an informant because my boss was evil, with even worse connections—drugs, terrorism, sex trafficking. You name it; he had a hand in it. I was to get them whatever they asked or plant what they asked. As th
e case expanded, they brought in two American agents for me to work with.”
“Jake?”
“Yes, and Chase. He was Jake’s partner at the time.” She thought back to them, how young and handsome they were, how much in love she was with her husband not even to notice the two that way.
“How did you end up being an informant? You said you were coerced.”
She hesitated. “I did something…wrong. My boss asked me to falsify information, and I did it, though I didn’t want to. I needed the job badly at the time. The government found out, and they used it against me. I could do what they wanted, or they would put me in jail. I was an informant for a year.”
“Jesus.”
“At the end, I wanted out at any cost, even if it meant jail time. I was terrified. My boss was acting oddly and things just felt off. So I met with Jake that Monday, and I told him I was done. He said those above them wanted one more piece of information. If I gave it to them, they’d get me out.”
“And you did it, right?”
“No. I couldn’t give them what they wanted.”
“Why not?”
This part bothered her a lot lately, because the more she knew Aaron, the more she was beginning to remember. Flashes of things not quite so perfect, not quite right. She was starting to see that John wasn’t the person she remembered him to be, or rather, the person her memories wanted him to be.
“What they wanted implied my husband was in on it, too. I didn’t understand how that could be. I scheduled Reese’s every move, and he never once had anything to do with John. So I watched the surveillance tapes and then destroyed them.”
“Didn’t that piss Jake off?”
“Yes.” Jake had been so pissed. “And it was the main reason I hated Jake so much, then. I thought he wanted to ruin my life. I decided then and there we were getting out on our own. John had an offer to teach in Dubai. I was going to push him to take it, and we’d be out.”
“So what happened?”
“They sent Chase to try to get me to give them something different, since I wouldn’t speak to Jake. I said no. The next day, Wednesday, Reese wanted me to stop at this pub for a quick drink to celebrate something. It wasn’t like him, but we went with a few of his associates. I didn’t feel well afterward so he took me home. Now, I realize he’d drugged me. I didn’t know that then.”
