For the First Time

by Stephanie Doyle

  But she was his daughter’s tutor and Sophie liked her. That was something he wasn’t going to mess up. There were boundaries that couldn’t be crossed if he didn’t want to see Nancy storm off, leaving him hanging over something as silly as her broken heart. After all, what were the odds he could actually make a relationship work long-term?

  Given his track record, his odds were on par with being able to cook lasagna on his own from scratch. And since he had no clue about what went into lasagna, those odds were basically none to none.

  “Not impressing anyone,” he clarified. “Just proving her wrong.”

  “Her.” Nancy nodded. “I sort of figured.”

  “Who is it?”

  Mark looked at Sophie. “JoJo is coming over.”

  He watched her face instantly change from suspicious to excited. “Awesome. Why, though? I thought you guys were working together. Mark, you do know you can’t date someone you employ, don’t you? It’s totally not cool.”

  “It’s not a date. It’s a work thing. But she made a crack about me cooking and well…”

  “You would rather set up an elaborate scene with pots and dishes than tell her the truth. Which is that you don’t cook.”

  “Exactly.” Mark smiled. “You know, Soph, I really feel like we’re getting to know each other.”

  “Well, I’ll be going,” Nancy said as she closed the book. “Let you do your…work thing. Sophie, I’ll expect that report next week. See you around, Mark.”

  Mark ignored her doubt about the intentions behind tonight’s activities. While he might appreciate her attraction, he certainly wouldn’t feel obligated to explain any part of his life to her. If that put her nose out of joint, then it was her issue. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted her to pursue him or not. Because when it came to him and women, it only ever went two ways. Either they chased him until he was ready to be caught, or Ben, his former rival and now friend, showed interest in a woman who Mark would then actively seduce.

  It had worked every time, until Mark met Anna. Because Ben and Anna had been in love.

  Love. Mark had never truly been in love. He used to worry what kind of person that made him. After years of dissecting his relationship with Helen, he’d concluded that if he’d loved her, really loved her, then staying with her and Sophie would have been more important than pursuing any life dream.

  But she had betrayed him. In the worst way. She lied to him about taking birth control while actually trying to get pregnant. Trying to find a way to cage him. To keep him from doing the thing he told her he’d always dreamed of doing. They had been together for what, eight or nine months? Two young kids enjoying college and steady sex.

  They hadn’t even lived together. Their entire relationship consisted of bars, beers, late-night calls and finding secretive places at parties to have sex.

  From that she had wanted forever. Had tried to make it happen by tricking him. A fact he would never share with Sophie.

  He didn’t regret the course of events. He couldn’t. He had Sophie now. How could he possibly be sorry when she was so spectacularly amazing? But had Helen lived, when he returned to the States to build a relationship with Sophie, there would have been nothing but a cordial friendship between him and his ex-girlfriend.

  After Helen, Mark’s ideas about love and relationships changed. He was totally up front about what he wanted from a woman. Harshly, that meant sex and only sex. He liked the game. He liked the chase. Whether he was doing the chasing or someone was chasing him. And he liked sex.

  There was no love involved in any of that. But lately he’d been rethinking his position. Maybe finding someone he could actually try to develop…what? After so many years of playing, he couldn’t actually say he understood what a real relationship was. He couldn’t fathom a scenario that he would be willing to subject not only himself to, but Sophie, as well.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Mark shook himself out of his reverie. What the hell was his problem anyway? There was no reason to be thinking about love and sex now.

  It was only JoJo who was coming over.

  He transferred the lasagna to the dish then splashed the sides of the ceramic with sauce. He turned on the oven and put aluminum foil over the dish, hoping ten minutes of heat might permeate the apartment with the smell of home cooking. He didn’t have to pretend with the bread. Who came home and made fresh bread? As soon as he had the garlic and butter coating ready he could throw the loaf under the broiler. Surely that would give off enough smell to convince anyone that major work had transpired in the kitchen.

  “Are you serious about this?” Sophie asked as she watched him methodically set the stage.

  “Like a heart attack. Here.” Mark handed his daughter the garbage bag containing all evidence from the restaurant—the receipt, the trays the food came in, even the menu that had been included. “Take this to the trash shoot. Be careful on your return. If she’s already at the door, double back, walk the long way around the hallway and then pretend you’d forgotten to pick up the mail.”

  Mark walked to the dish where Sophie had already placed the day’s mail and handed it to her.

  “Okay, this is officially weird.”

  “It’s about being committed to the lie. She assumed I can’t cook, I’m proving her wrong.”

  “You can’t cook,” Sophie said as if speaking to a small child.

  “Hurry. In the meantime I have to look up the ingredients in tomato sauce. Tony, the rat bastard, wouldn’t give up his ancient family secret. I was, like, really? It’s spaghetti sauce, not life and death.”

  “What. Ever.”

  *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, JoJo sat next to Sophie at the island while Mark looked on from the other side.

  JoJo was oohing and aahing over every bite. Thankfully his daughter had decided to play along. Instead of ratting him out, she simply watched the two of them like she might watch one of her favorite reality TV shows. Shows she would never admit to actually watching or liking.

  “This is really amazing,” JoJo said around a mouthful of pasta, sauce and cheese. “You made this in such a short amount of time. Incredible.”

  “Oh, I didn’t make the pasta or the bread.” Mark leaned against the counter, striking a casual pose that declared his honesty—he hoped. “I bought both fresh. You know, this time.”

  “Sure. Who could make that so quickly? The sauce is the star. Such a burst of flavor. It tastes like it’s been simmering for hours. I must have the recipe.”

  Predictable move. The girl was a private investigator. A highly successful one. Which meant she doubted everything he told her. From the moment he said he could cook.

  Such suspicion in one so young. Did that come from her job? Or from what happened to her sister?

  “Sorry. No can do. Family secret.” Mark smiled. “Don’t go looking to Sophie, either. I haven’t shared it with her yet.”

  “That’s right,” Sophie said. “He’s told me absolutely nothing about how to make something like this.”

  Mark wanted to shoot Sophie a warning look, but that would give him away. This was a game, just like the one they had played at the hotel. Mark planned to win and be up two to zero. The fact that he hadn’t felt this jazzed about anything since leaving the CIA, he decided, was not a problem. Just because he was having fun didn’t mean he in any way wanted to have fun with JoJo.

  “Okay, fine. I don’t really need the recipe anyway. I don’t think I told you that food is a new hobby of mine. In New York I worked a case for this big-deal chef who wanted me to find the person embezzling from his restaurant. When I found out who it was—his assistant manager—he was so grateful he gave me cooking lessons for free. Can you believe that?”

  If Mark had been sitting down, he was sure he would be squirming. This was not happening to him.

  “Just tell me this—fresh basil or dry?”

  Mark decided to base his answer on a recipe he’d read online. It wasn’t possible for
someone who was not a professional food critic to discern the difference in an herb. Was it?

  “Dry.”

  JoJo’s smile was victorious. Immediately, Mark knew he had been tripped up.

  “Damn it! Fresh? No, wait. There is no basil is there? Freaking Tony and his damn secret recipe.”

  “Oh, I have no idea. You know how hard that would be to pick out a single herb from a sauce like this? That’s hard-core palate stuff. No, my chef friend only told me how to make spaghetti carbonara and a risotto. Sorry,” JoJo said, her lips turning down even though he knew she wasn’t remotely remorseful.

  Sophie laughed loudly and the sound startled Mark. It was the first time he had heard his daughter laugh at anything that hard. And it was worth his downfall. Completely worth it.

  “Busted,” Sophie roared. “Like, one hundred percent, total takedown.”

  “Yeah, fine. So you caught me.”

  “He even made me take the mail with me in case you caught me throwing out the restaurant bags.”

  JoJo chuckled and Mark could see the twinkle of mischief in her eye. As if she would have done the same thing had their positions been reversed. “It’s all about commitment to the lie,” she told his daughter.

  It was a little weird how similar their thinking was.

  After they finished eating, Sophie cleaned up. “Okay, I’m going to get started on my homework. You guys can have the living room to work.”

  Mark looked at JoJo. A silent agreement passed between them—it was now or never.

  “Uh, actually, Sophie, we wanted to talk to you.”

  “Oh, great.”

  “Look,” Mark said. “I’m worried about that note we got. I don’t like the threat and I’m being supercautious. JoJo will help watch out for you over the next few days. Just until we can find out who sent it.”

  Sophie crossed her arms. “A bodyguard? Really.”

  “Not a bodyguard,” JoJo corrected her. “Another pair of eyes. It’s not like I would throw myself in front of a bullet or anything. Let’s get real. I would call 911, like, really fast.”

  Mark knew JoJo was trying to make light of the situation for Sophie’s sake. Cracking a few jokes. No big deal. Just a person hanging around the studio and theater. But Mark didn’t buy it. Having known JoJo for even a short time, he knew she was absolutely the type to throw herself in front of Sophie to protect her.

  He didn’t imagine JoJo would ever again watch while another person got hurt in front of her.

  “Fine,” Sophie said, capitulating. “I guess I should probably show you the other one, then.”

  Mark felt every hair on the back of his neck rise. “What other one?”

  Sophie pulled the folded white envelope out of her back pocket. “I noticed it when you handed me the mail. I didn’t want you to see it and freak, but since you’re already freaked out I guess there’s no point in hiding it.”

  Mark took the envelope without saying a word. Anything he said would be filled anger at his daughter’s foolishness. He could feel JoJo coming up behind him to peek over his shoulder at what was on the plain white paper.

  Just the one word.

  Soon.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “SHE’S YOUR BODYGUARD?” Bay asked.

  “I know. Crazy, right?”

  “So what are these notes?”

  Even from a distance, JoJo could see Sophie shrug. “I don’t know. They showed up in our mail. No address or name or anything. Mark is completely freaking out. Hence the bodyguard. I mean JoJo is cool and everything. Still, I can’t stand feeling like I’m being watched all the time.”

  And listened to.

  JoJo sat at the rear of the auditorium. Far enough away to give Sophie the illusion of space. To compensate, she’d planted a small listening device in the hood of the sweatshirt Sophie was wearing. JoJo heard every word.

  She felt no compunction over the intrusion. The girl needed to be watched. The second note, just like the first, offered no clues. Even the word—soon—was so vague that it was almost a nonthreat. Almost.

  Maybe the note was from someone who wanted to mess with Mark’s head but had no real intention to carry through with any actual violence. But Mark wasn’t willing to take that chance and neither was JoJo. That included listening in on conversations so that she could learn about anyone connected with Sophie.

  Sophie wouldn’t be out of JoJo’s eyesight or earshot for the duration. Mark was depending on her.

  “Didn’t he just hire her? You would think if he was really worried, he’d be here himself.”

  “Yeah, because that’s what I want.” Sophie snorted. “Mark sitting there watching me all day. We drive each other crazy as it is. I need to work, remember?”

  “You don’t need to work. You’re perfect now and you’ll be perfect opening night.”

  “Tell that to the maestro.”

  “He’s just giving you a hard time.”

  “I notice he’s not giving it to anyone else. He came all the way from Russia because he said he wanted to work with me specifically. Now all he does is trash me. At first I thought it was the usual ego bullshit, but now I think he might have it in for me.”

  JoJo agreed. She didn’t need an earpiece to hear the conductor constantly berating Sophie’s performance. Too slow, too fast. Not crisp enough, not sharp enough. But JoJo had never heard anything so purely perfect as the concerto Sophie had played.

  It had been magnificent. Until the maestro told her to stop and then berated the girl like she was an amateur.

  JoJo had been tempted to walk onstage and tell the man to back off. Something about watching him shout down from his raised platform struck a little too close to home. A short man who needed the pedestal to give himself authority.

  She couldn’t imagine Mark being comfortable with the conductor’s behavior, either.

  But she’d promised Sophie she would interfere as little as possible. The girl was a professional, albeit a young one. JoJo had to respect that.

  “It’s his ego talking. Don’t let it get to you, Sophie. Here, have a piece of gum. Every time you want to say something to him, just bite down on it.”

  “Thanks. Better head back to your section. Don’t want him accusing me of being lazy like yesterday.”

  “Hey, chin up.”

  JoJo had seen the young man hand Sophie the piece of gum, which she dutifully chomped on. Then he gave her a small knock under her chin with his fingers and walked to his seat. She watched as Sophie stood motionless for a second, then wrapped her arms around her waist and twisted her foot inward. She lifted a hand to her mouth, then quickly dropped it.

  Sophie liked the boy. Of course she did. He was tall and handsome and talented, and Sophie was a normal teenage girl, with normal teenage hormones.

  Not that she could act on any of those hormones. JoJo had already checked and learned that Sophie’s friend was eighteen. The only thing they could be to each other right now was friends.

  JoJo hoped Bay understood that. A fourteen-year-old girl, soon to be fifteen, who was struggling with some pretty heavy life stuff was easy prey. JoJo wanted to believe he wasn’t a predator.

  But she didn’t trust him. Not his fault. She didn’t trust anyone.

  Still, she found herself a little jealous. What did it feel like to look at a boy and dream of being kissed by him? To be held by him, without any of the baggage that JoJo walked around with every day?

  JoJo bet it felt good and awful and all the normal things young love and sexual desire were supposed to feel like. Something she never had as a part of her young life. It wasn’t that JoJo didn’t know what desire felt like—that she had experience with. Hell, she experienced it even when it was inconvenient, like it was with Mark. But she never had to act on it. She was willing to acknowledge her attraction to him, especially after seeing his face when she’d busted him on the basil. Nothing would ever come of her desire. Like nothing had ever come of it before.

  Still, she kep
t circling to the idea that Mark wasn’t like other men. That strange intangible quality made her think about him all day and all night long.

  Probably the same way Sophie thought about Bay. Which was utterly pathetic.

  Of course, none of JoJo’s speculation took into account how Mark might feel about her. She wasn’t exactly a magnet. In fact, when it came to personal dealings with men she usually assumed a confrontational stand. Better to start with the premise that any man she knew would abuse her, stop loving her…then work her way up from that. To JoJo, men were the enemy. They needed to be outsmarted, outmatched and at times taken down a peg or two.

  No worries about overcoming her phobia and actually having a relationship with one of them. Not when she was constantly in battle: a battle she’d begun with her father that had never really ended.

  It was enough to make her wish she was gay so she could avoid the male gender altogether outside of professional relationships.

  Only she wasn’t.

  She had been reminded of the fact the first time she’d met Mark and felt the low punch to her stomach. Knew it again when he had been checking out her legs in the hotel lobby and it had sent a thrill through her. Most certainly knew it when he half smiled and half groaned after getting caught staging a homemade meal.

  No, she wasn’t gay. She was, however—at the very ripe age of twenty-seven—still a virgin.

  JoJo was the girl who couldn’t.

  Or didn’t. Or wouldn’t.

  Sometimes it was hard to know which of those things was true. Since knowing didn’t change the fact, she supposed it didn’t matter.

  She turned her attention to the stage to watch and listen as Sophie went back to work and the conductor went back to yelling at the girl.

  *

  “HOW DO YOU put up with that short fat dude yelling at you all day?”

  “I know, right?”

  JoJo had taken Sophie’s key and unlocked the door to the apartment. She stepped in and started moving through the space, room to room, searching for intruders. When she returned to the living room, Sophie shook her head and plopped on the couch.