Chapter 2
Will
I held Brie tight, breathing in the familiar scent of her. Vanilla. She rarely wore perfume, but she always smelled like vanilla. A million different hand creams, every candle she ever bought, right down to her deodorant. If it wasn’t vanilla, it wasn’t my Brie.
Her grip around my neck was fierce, as if making up for twelve months of missed hugs in one go. Over her shoulder, I caught Emmett’s cocked eyebrow—the quintessential Reynolds signal of curiosity, silently asking for the rest of the story.
I ignored him. There wasn’t a rest of the story to tell.
The warmth of her embrace pushed back the exhaustion that had been riding my shoulders since dawn. This morning had been brutal—Mum was fine on the trip to Heathrow, but her confusion started when we boarded the Reynolds private jet. She’d asked three times how we were affording the trip.
There were moments of clarity when we arrived at the care facility, which led to her protests. She didn’t belong there. She didn’t need help. She was only sixty-three, and the place was full of old people.
Then came the shift—her posture straightening, shoulders squaring, fingers finding her wedding band and twisting it round and round. Calling me by my father’s name. Asking when we were going home to Oxshott.
But Brie was solid and real in my arms, anchoring me to the way things used to be, like a year ago, when my father was still alive and hiding my mother’s illness.
Push it down, man.
“So,” I said, finally releasing her, “any chance I can see what you’ve done to my workspace?”
“Actually, it’s a bit of a mess,” she said, her big brown eyes bright behind her oversized glasses. “But let’s go.”
We headed for the stairs, my body feeling heavier than it should have. Jet lag, probably. Or the weight of leaving Mum behind. I concentrated on climbing the steps.
It’s the best choice. You can’t keep taking care of her. Even your sister said that.
“Did you read Rav’s email?” Brie asked, a step ahead of me. Straight to work. Exactly what I needed.
“I did.”
“It came through the email we set up for emergencies, so I’m assuming there’s a problem.”
“Sounded to me like he was saying the network’s monitored and he can’t get a cell signal to call us.”
Brie hummed as she climbed the steps. “You don’t think there’s more to it?”
I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me. “I think this job has you on edge, and you’re reading too much into it. You should email—”
“Gideon?” she said as she crested the top step. “Already did.”
Of course, she had. Because it was the first thought I’d had, too.
The mezzanine office looked almost exactly as I remembered it.
Brie’s desk with its array of monitors, the worktables in the middle, the stacks where my 3D printers—currently in transit—used to sit.
But my desk had a laptop I didn’t recognize, surrounded by neatly arranged notebooks and a small stack of papers.
A twinge of something pinched inside my chest. Someone else’s things on my desk. In my space.
You’ve been gone for over a year. Things change. Don’t be so territorial.
Ashley had been doing work I couldn’t do from London. But seeing physical evidence of how much life had continued without me stung more than I’d expected.
Brie’s gaze followed mine. “I told you it was a mess! Ashley’s almost done moving everything back downstairs.”
My backpack hit the floor as I surveyed the desk. “At least my plant survived.”
Brie stuck out her tongue. “We watered it every Monday.”
“Better than I ever did. Pretty sure I killed three succulents in London through sheer neglect.” I touched one of the healthy leaves. “You’ve turned my sad little plant into something thriving. Show-off.”
I picked up one of the photos, a framed shot of us at high school graduation—Brie’s cap askew, my arm around her shoulders. My chest tightened. Easier times. When I still had two parents.
Before Brie and I tested what our relationship could have…
Deep breath. Focus on the moment.
“Back to the email.” Brie leaned against the edge of my desk. “Rav hasn’t called either, so I’m guessing the security’s tighter than we thought. I think you should take that prototype of the mini satellite phone.”
“It’s still in beta.”
“But if you and Ashley can’t—” She halted at the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
A woman with a short blonde bob appeared at the top, tablet in hand. Ashley Bradford. “Will Reaney, in the flesh.” She crossed the room with quick strides and extended her hand. “Nice to finally meet my husband in person.”
I put the photo down and shook her hand, her grip firm. I’d been working with Ash remotely for six months. She was Brie’s right-hand hacker and my partner for the upcoming mission.
“Likewise, but don’t you mean Will Stone?” I replied with a half-smile, using our undercover surname. “Guess we should probably get to know each other before we leave?”
She laughed, moving past me to collect items from the desk. “Two days isn’t much time to construct a convincing romance, but we’ll figure it out.”
“The work cover story’s solid,” Brie added, crossing to her own desk.
“I know, I know.” Ashley stacked papers on top of her laptop. “I’ve been brushing up on network administration procedures. I had a dream last night. In it, I was speaking in IP addresses.”
Brie snorted a laugh.
“But we’ll still need to establish some rapport,” I said, the reality of going undercover becoming more concrete than it had been during our planning sessions. “I’ve always worked behind the scenes. Never gone undercover at all, let alone for two weeks straight.”
I’d spent the past year working remotely—designing hardware and helping Brie run ops from Mum’s maisonette while managing her care. The thought of jumping straight into fieldwork made my stomach clench.
“We just need to appear boring and married enough that no one looks too closely.” Ashley flashed her left hand, where an engagement ring and wedding band caught the light. “Scarlett has your ring, by the way.”
I nodded, but wasn’t ready to wander away from Brie yet.
“And she wants another briefing tomorrow morning.” Ashley picked up her laptop and papers. “Are you good to review our cover story details in about thirty minutes?”
We had an entire false history together, complete with manufactured photos on our company phones.
On paper, we had a rich history, including falling in love in college.
I already knew her favorite color, her parents’ names, and her first boyfriend.
I’d memorized everything Emmett prepared for us, unsure of what was real and what was our story.
But I’d been up since four a.m. London time, flown across the Atlantic, moved my mother into a long-term care facility, and was still processing being back in Canada. My emotional resources were depleted. I barely wanted to move, let alone figure out a brand-new fake relationship.
“How about a quick overview now,” I said, “and we can do the deep dive tomorrow?”
“Works for me,” Ashley said. “Let’s be sure we can recite our meeting story, shared history, and why we took the jobs. Then tomorrow we’ll work on tweaking it to be more personal, including the parts we’d disagree about.”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll get your ring from Scarlett,” Brie offered, heading for the stairs. “Maybe it’ll help you settle into the cover better.”
As she left, I sank into my chair. Someone had adjusted it since I’d left, and it was too low, but I was too bloody tired to care.
The past year had been a constant exercise in adaptation—learning to navigate my mother’s declining memory, coordinating with Brie remotely, designing hardware with limited resources.
And now they expected me to become someone else entirely for two weeks.
Well, mostly someone else entirely. The team had kept some elements of my real life, including my name, to be sure I’d always answer when someone called me.
But at least I was back where things made sense for a couple of days.
Ashley set her laptop on the desk. “She missed you, you know. A lot.”
I looked up.
Of course, Brie had missed me. We’d been practically glued to each other since we were seven. Missing each other after a year apart was natural. Expected.
So, why did my chest tighten when I heard Ashley say it aloud?
“And she kept your space exactly as you left it until I joined her up here for the intense part of the planning a couple of months ago. She wouldn’t let anyone else touch your stuff before that.”
The territorial instinct suddenly felt petty. Brie had protected this space—my space—for an entire year. While I’d been an ocean away dealing with Mum’s decline, she’d been here, keeping things ready for my return.
Before I could reply, Brie appeared at the top of the stairs with a small box in her hand, shaking it in my direction. “Got it! Now, where were we?”
Ashley turned to Brie without missing a beat. “Will’s about to explain to me how we met and fell madly in love.”
“Right,” I said, standing and taking the box from Brie. Inside was a simple gold band. “Let’s review the fairy tale Emmett came up with.”
Brie pulled up the backstory document on her computer, but as we gathered around the screen, my mind started replaying Ashley’s words: ‘She missed you. A lot.’
The truth was, I’d missed Brie more than I’d allowed myself to admit—missed our easy collaboration, our inside jokes, the way she snorted and giggled when she was nervous.
I’d missed my best friend.
I stared at the mission parameters without really seeing them, wondering how I was supposed to focus on pretending to be married to Ashley when all I could think about was how good it felt to be back at Brie’s side.