Chapter 8 #2
She licked her lips as water sluiced down his body. Strength wrapped in softness, and the very definition of the Golden Ratio. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, thick thighs, and enough meat on his bones to create the most comfortable cuddle she’d ever enjoyed.
Exactly her catnip.
“You could’ve started eating without me. It’s past your dinnertime.”
“I’m not a toddler.” John looked up from the pool. “I can skip meals.”
He could not. Any time he missed one, he turned into Mr. Crankypants.
She ventured toward the pool. “Where’d you get a swimsuit?”
“I didn’t. You said we’re the only ones here.”
Oh. Oh. She averted her gaze. “I’ll head to the lounge.”
She beelined toward the table. Naked, wet John was unfair. Splashes behind her meant he’d launched himself from the pool again. She would not imagine him naked, she would not imagine him naked, she…dammit. Her imagination was working overtime.
Mariam had left them a feast. Baked quinces, meslalla olives, couscous, and a chicken-and-almond pastilla garnished with sugar and cinnamon. Hopefully she could focus more on the delicious food than the naked man hovering behind her.
Correction. Half-naked. John had wrapped a towel around his waist.
She plated her dinner and tried not to get more distracted.
“Looks good,” he said.
“Yeah, Mariam’s the best.” She slid the napkin from its intricate gold ring, then draped it on her lap. “Don’t let me forget to put the ras el hanout in the kitchen.”
They would eat, go to bed, and she’d simply ignore the fact he was across the hall.
“Hey.” John touched her elbow as he sat opposite her. “Can we talk? Like, really talk.”
The eat-bed-ignore plan was officially out the window.
Her heart rattled her ribs. Despite her resolve at Amina’s that they’d need to talk this through, words curled up and died on her tongue.
The importance of the conversation they needed to have about her job, their relationship, the world and everything in between froze her brain.
All she could manage was, “Yes.”
John took a deep breath. “You’ve read my file. I want to read your file. Metaphorically.”
Hope sparked inside her. His curiosity was a bridge-builder. If he was done with her, he wouldn’t give a shit.
“I’ll tell you anything that’s unclassified. Where do you want me to start?”
“Your family.” He tore into the pastilla, and the shredded chicken, egg and almond pie’s aroma wafted toward her. “Where you grew up, schools, best friends and boyfriends, why you joined the CIA. I’ll ask questions along the way.”
She sighed. “That’s a lot of backstory.”
He leaned against the pillows and spread his arms wide. “I’m not going anywhere.”
You might.
“Vivian, please. I need to know who you are.”
He didn’t know what he was asking of her. Cloaked in her Jane Davis alias, she’d shed parts of Vivian Flint that she’d rather forget. To explain who she was, she’d need to dredge it up and hand it to him on a platter. But if that’s what it took to win him back…
She poured lemon water. Whiskey would be better, but Mariam didn’t stock alcohol.
“Specific questions are helpful,” she said.
“What are your parents’ names?”
“Frank and Kim. Dad worked overtime a lot when I was a kid—”
“Installing ducts.”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “So Mom took us to free museums. She had a deep appreciation for art that I’ve inherited. If my grandparents had had money, she would’ve gone to art school. Instead, she mostly paints rooms and redecorates.”
That came out wrong. Her parents were warmer and more vibrant than her sad, babbled description. She rubbed her eyebrows.
“You frowned when you mentioned your mom. Do you not get along?”
“Are you kidding? My mom’s amazing. I love her.”
She fiddled with the napkin ring. That was all true, but not the whole truth. So she would tell him something she’d never admitted to anyone.
“I don’t want to be like her.”
Jane Davis’s dead parents were easier to deal with than Vivian’s living ones. Jane put her parents on a pedestal. Vivian had to grapple with her parents’ flaws, like Mom’s inability to put herself first and Dad’s love of Natty Bohs.
“Why?” John asked. “I mean, I don’t want to be like mine either, so we’ve got that in common. But I’m curious.”
Vivian rolled the napkin ring. “My mom defines herself through caregiver roles. Crossed a lot of boundaries, too. When we grew up into fiercely independent adults and didn’t need her, she fell apart.
She’s better now because she helps my siblings with their kids.
There are five little ones. Ezekial, Elijah, Gideon, Mark and Eve. ”
“Very biblical,” he said.
She saluted him. “Irish Catholic, at your service. My parents are also good friends with the parish priest, so they’ll pressure us for a traditional wedding mass.”
Oh, Christ. The Great Babbling continued. She steamrolled over her gaffe.
“Anyway, I promised myself I’d never base my self-worth on the role I played in other people’s lives. How much they might need me.”
John ran his hand through his hair, which made his chest ripple.
More unfairness.
She scooped up a forkful of couscous. Her appetite had disappeared, but she needed a plausible pause in conversation to calm her mouth and flaring libido down.
“Tell me about your siblings,” he said.
“I have, remember? I just pretended they were coworkers.”
That should have been her first clue that John was different. She’d never disclosed an ounce of truth about her family to anyone she’d met through the job. Too risky. But with him, she’d opened that door, hungry for him to know some part of her real life while staying within the agency’s protocols.
John leaned forward. “I’m glad they’re actually your siblings. I thought you had an unhealthy attachment to your coworkers. Are you all close?”
“Very.” She nodded. “We bicker and blow up at each other, then meet for dinner and Uno at my parents’ about twice a month. But I have to warn you, they’re intimidating. They’re all smart, successful and confident. Good-looking, too.”
“Like you.” John dug his spoon into a baked quince.
Warmth flowed through her like honey. She worked hard to achieve those qualities.
John knew about her learning disability, but she’d spoken only casually about it.
Framed it as an interesting quirk, like being able to fold her tongue.
Digging into it with him would require her to trot out her raw less-than feelings.
But wasn’t that the point of this conversation? For him to know the real her.
Insecurities included.
“I wasn’t always that way,” she said. “Big families label their kids—the funny one, the athlete, the artist, the tenderhearted one. I was the ‘special’ one because I’m dyslexic.
They’d all help me with my exercises, provide visual supports, color codes, things like that.
I was like a family group project. They still see me that way.
Like I need their help. I kind of hate it. ”
John let her continue, uninterrupted.
She sipped her lemon water.
“It started when I was eight and my grades were terrible except for math, art and phys ed. My teachers suggested I repeat third grade. My parents disagreed because they thought I was smart, so they had me tested. Voilà—dyslexia. They enrolled me in an expensive private school for kids with learning disabilities like mine. I felt guilty about the expense, the carpooling, and the disruption to everyone else’s routine. So, I learned to hustle.”
“Hustle? In third grade?” He locked gazes with her. “Vivian, you needed something different—not extra—and they did right by you. You didn’t need to make it up to them. You were worthy of it.”
She couldn’t breathe.
Worthy. She’d strived for academic dominance and then devoted herself to using her skills and talents to making a positive difference in the world. All to prove her parents had made a good investment in her.
And here’s John, the first person to whom she’d spilled her guts, telling her she didn’t need to prove anything. That couldn’t be true.
John leaned forward. “Dyslexia is just how your brain’s wired, like being right-handed. It’s nothing to apologize for. You get that, don’t you?”
Emotion clogged her throat.
“I know it here.” She tapped herself on the temple, then moved to her sternum. “And I’m working on knowing it here.”
He sipped from her glass. “Where did your art career come from?”
Bless him for understanding she needed a topic change.
“Art was always my solace. Shapes and patterns and colors never flipped around in my brain. But Torrey’s the truly artistic one, so I let her have that label and focused on becoming the smart one. During my senior year, I scored enough scholarships to go to Georgetown.”
“That’s why you were wearing a Hoya T-shirt in the photo at Anjali’s house.” Understanding dawned on John’s face. “You didn’t go to University of Denver. Was art history your major, like you said?”
She swallowed a sticky bite of honey-drizzled baked quince. “No. Culture and politics. I minored in international econ and worked at the Smithsonian. After graduation, I’d planned to go into finance. But then the terrorist attacks at the museums in France happened.”
John set down his fork. “I remember that. We’d just moved back to the States from Marseille. We were all horrified.”
“This might sound obnoxious, but I was mad I wasn’t involved in a solution to prevent that from happening again. So instead of applying to jobs at random J.P. Billionaire & Sons finance firms, I applied to Georgetown’s security studies master’s program.”
“And got in, obviously. Is that how you ended up at the CIA?”
She nodded. “During my first year of grad school, I wrote an algorithm that was a spookily accurate predictor of where people would loot antiquities. It’s a national security concern because looted items are sold on the black market, and the sales revenue is often funneled into organized crime or terrorist activities. ”
John thumbed his chin. “I’d like to revise my earlier statement. You’re the smartest person I know, not just one of them.”
He meant it as a compliment, but too much attention made her uneasy. Sigh. To be an overachiever who eschewed the spotlight was a special kind of hell.
“My paper caught the attention of the CIA recruiter based at Georgetown. They wanted me to take on the alias of an art broker. I’d tap into black market funnels—fences, dealers, private sales, shady auction houses—to shut them down and decrease the flow of the IMF’s estimated $67.
4 billion per year to criminals and terrorists. ”
“You must’ve been such a kid. I mean that in a good way, but that’s a lot for a young person. How old were you when you started there?”
“Twenty-two and a student when they recruited me, twenty-four when graduated and I went full time. Not to brag, but I was kind of a wunderkind. It was all very Bond. Travel, risk, luxury, lovers, all to establish myself as a name in the field while learning how auction houses sell art. The rules vary from country to country.”
“Lots of secrecy.” He nodded.
“Which allows people to game it. Anonymous buyers and sellers, cash deals, manipulating taste. So I find emerging artists around the world, build them up, and watch who uses their work to make a killing at an auction.”
“Like Amina?”
“She’s on the cusp. Rocksy’s a better example.
” Vivian hid a yawn. This conversation was weirdly exhausting.
“Which brings us to today. So there you go. That’s the blitzkrieg version of my life’s story.
From academic underdog to tenacious scholar to Department of Defense operative in the art world. ”
He tilted his head to the side. “Have you killed anyone?”
“No. I’m not that kind of agent. Gunplay and explosions are not my norm. The goal is to get information and get out. Not to be noticed.”
“Who wouldn’t notice you?” He leaned back in the pillows again. “Thanks for sharing all that. I feel like I know you better.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“Yes, ugh.” She shoved back from the table and paced the courtyard. From the sound of his footsteps, he followed her. “We know each other, John. That was basically my transcript and CV.”
“It was more than that, Vivian.” He caught her waist.
They stood in a fragile bubble of silence.
Until he pressed his lips to hers.
His kiss was like coming home. This familiarity, this intimacy, was precious.
“Does this…” she breathed “…mean I’m forgiven?”
He pressed his forehead to hers. “For the lies, yes. I understand why it was necessary.”
She backed away. “Why do I feel a but coming?”
“This is a me thing.” He riffled his hair. “I’ve told you that I always came second to my parents’ jobs. I’ve made my peace with it because that’s what public service requires. But…”
“There it is,” she said. Sometimes she hated being right.
“I don’t want to shape my adult life around it, too. Your job will come first, and I get why. It’s important. But as long as you’re a part of the CIA, I can’t be a part of us.”
Her stomach squeezed. “Are you asking me to quit my job?”
“No, never. I respect your choice. But I’m sorry, I’m not cut out for this life. I hope you can understand and respect that.”
He left her in the courtyard.
Once he closed the door to his room, she choked her sob on a jewel-toned pillow.