“My point is that our situation is temporary. Extremely temporary. If we’re going to be successful, we should keep our heads down and get it over with.”
The faster we found those love letters, the faster I could be back where I belonged—behind a computer screen. And Sam could go back to being a distant, aggravating memory.
“Fine by me,” he grunted.
“You’re not going to tell me what this consultant position is actually about, are you?” I asked softly, crossing my arms.
“I’ll be returning to the FBI either way,” he replied.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“That’s all the answer I can give you.”
The thought of Sam hiding the truth made my chest tighten uncomfortably.
“Partners…” I cleared my throat. “Partners need to be honest with each other.”
“Then tell me why you’re nervous to go undercover.”
“I’m not nervous,” I lied.
He took a step closer to me. “If you want us to be real partners, even for a few days, you can’t demand honesty from me and not return it. Does it have anything to do with why you left Quantico? Because you can tell me why you quit.”
“Do you truly care?” I asked.
Sam rubbed his neck. “More than you think.”
A lingering silence stretched between us. What would it be like to give in to that persistent urge to press my cheek to Sam’s chest and let him hug me?
“I know you care. I know, Byrne.” My tone was conciliatory, and when our eyes met, I touched his arm. Briefly. I considered saying more but stopped myself. All that time trapped in arguments, we had cultivated a false intimacy. But sharing my health struggles with him felt too vulnerable, too authentically intimate. I wasn’t sure if I could bare my soul to a man I felt this strongly about. Too strongly to ever admit to weakness.
“Tell me why you’re nervous,” he said.
My nostrils flared. It was always push for push with this man. “Tell me what’s really going on with your job.”
He took another step, foot sliding between mine. “One day in and you’re already more frustrating than my actual fucking partner, and he’s—”
His mouth clamped shut. He stepped back from me and strode toward the front door.
“Let’s go.”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Your partner was…what? Your partner at Art Theft, you mean?”
“Gregory,” Sam finally said. “When I go back, I’ll have a new partner.”
He was leaving that gap of information for me to fill in with assumptions. And my assumption was that he and his former partner were being split apart intentionally.
“Was he not good?”
“Not honest.”
A not-honest partner. A consultant position that didn’t seem completely on the level. And a weariness etched into his face when he forgot to school his expression.
I stepped right back up to him. “I’ll tell you the truth when you tell me the truth. How’s that for a deal?”
His tone was dry. “And for a moment there, I thought we were getting along.”
My lips twitched. “We’re in a tenuous truce at best.”
“Our professors at Quantico would be proud.”
“Our professors at Quantico would be failing us right now because we’re about to be late on our first day.”
He cursed under his breath. “Goddammit. Get in the car.”
“After you, Julian.”
Sam stalked out my front door and down my front steps—walking angrily, as he often did when he was around me.
Except this time, I was more focused on the phantom feeling of his fingers on my wrist.
Equal parts strength and plea.
I liked it.
11
Sam
“Dreams do come true,” Freya said, head falling all the way back as she took in the lobby at The Grand Dame hotel.
It was, admittedly, a paradise for a book-nerd like her. The domed ceiling was carved with Art Deco designs—hanging from the center was a banner welcoming people to the 60th Annual Antiquarian Book Festival. Two curving staircases dominated the room, draped with a blood-red carpet. The massive fireplace against the right-side wall was decorated with classical-looking portraits and colonial-era lanterns.
And the room was packed with booksellers. Cart after cart moved past us, all of them covered in tarps and canvasses to protect the antiquities inside. Two distinguished-looking men with handlebar mustaches brushed past, talking excitedly about scientific advancements in gilded edge analysis. A tall woman wore a hat plumed with peacock feathers. In front of us, the line crawled toward the registration area—and behind that, two doors opened into a cavernous room filled with even more people.
A quick inventory of my physical reactions revealed a surprise.
I actually felt excited.
Nervous, of course—but that was par for the course when you were about