Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“Pretending isn’t hard. Hell, I pretend every single day of my life. Pretend to be normal. Pretend to fit in. Pretend to care. Not like this is my first undercover assignment. I can pretend in my sleep.” – Gray Stone
“I’m sorry about your coat.” Emerson stood inside of her rental.
An upscale condo in Atlanta’s Art District.
Moments ago, she’d disarmed her alarm. She shrugged out of the suit coat and extended it toward Gray.
She grimaced as she noticed the dark stains on the back of the coat.
“You know what?” Emerson snatched the coat back before he could take it from her. “I’ll get it dry cleaned.”
“Forget it.” He tugged the coat from her fingers. “I can handle some dirt, Emerson.”
“Oh, so I’m Emerson again, huh? Thought I was Dr. Marlowe. Seemed odd, I have to say, considering all of the times you chided me for calling you Grayson. ”
“Grayson was my father’s fucking name. I don’t particularly like it.”
She blinked.
“So, what’s happening here? Do I stand in the doorway all night or are you going to invite me inside?”
He’d followed her home. Trailed her up the stairs to her second-floor condo. Seen her to the door. And now he wanted inside. Emerson cocked her head to the right. “If you come in, will you give me truth or lies?”
“Emerson, Emerson, Emerson. Did you just call me a liar?”
“No, I asked if you would give me truth or lies. It’s a straightforward question. One you didn’t answer.” She held her ground. “If you come in, do you intend to kiss me again?” A second question that deserved an answer.
Gray rocked forward, then caught himself. He shoved the coat under one arm. “You know what? It’s probably a better idea for me to head out. I’ll brief you at 0600 with the others.” He turned away.
“Gray?”
“Yeah, Emerson?” Gray glanced over his shoulder.
She would not admit that she loved the way he said her name. The deep rumble and roll. The slightly rough edge. Fine, she would admit to herself that she loved the way he said her name. She would not admit that fact to anyone else. “Get your ass inside.”
He flashed his smile.
Lethal.
She backed up. “Do you use that smile to your advantage often? Flashing it when you want to be charming or extra sexy in order to get what you want?”
He quirked a brow even as he entered her place and shut the door behind him. He tossed the coat onto her entrance table. “I think you just said I was both charming and sexy. Thank you. That should work well for our cover.” His gaze darted around her place. “Huh. Not what I expected.”
She wasn’t going to be distracted. “The cover thing was for real? We have a new case? One where we’ll be working undercover?” As lovers?
“You requested to work with me because you wanted more field experience, yes?”
She’d requested to work with him because Gray understood killers extremely well. The man was a legend. Also a hard ass. And a sexy distraction. Plus, a million other things that she had not fully expected. “Yes.” A cautious response.
“Then consider your wish granted. You’re about to get a crash course in field work.”
Um, good?
He studied her critically. “You are great at profiling.”
“Thanks for noticing,” she muttered.
“I figure you’d like to have a shot at profiling on the spot, seeing potential suspects up close, and zeroing in on a target in real time.”
Okay, he was dead serious. Excitement pulsed in their veins. “So there is a real cover.”
“Real. And dangerous.”
She thought about exactly what he’d said before regarding the case. “ Why are we going to pretend to be a couple?”
“Because there is a killer targeting couples. They are his prey of choice. Three couples are dead so far. Two honeymooners. One couple celebrating their tenth anniversary. Guess someone just doesn’t like love.
” His mouth tightened. “We’re going to find that someone.
We’re going to be his next victims. And we’re going to turn the tables and stop him. There. Done. Easy.”
There seemed to be nothing easy about the plan from where she was standing. “When did you find out about this case?”
“Yesterday. Cassius brought it to my attention.”
The gang leader had brought the murders to his attention?
“That couple that was celebrating their tenth anniversary? They happened to be friends of his. Cassius has taken a special interest in the case. If we bring down the killer…” His gaze held hers.
“He’s promised that he will greatly owe the Feds.
I’m sure you understand how having Cassius in my debt could be a very beneficial proposition. ”
Her arms wrapped around her stomach. “Cassius wants to kill the guy.”
“Yes, true.”
“He intends to kill the perp.”
Gray didn’t argue.
She felt like a recap was in order. “You’re going to find the killer. But you’re not going to turn him over to Cassius, are you?”
“The plan,” a smooth response from Gray, “is to stop the perp. To lock him up. The same way we locked up Jake Waller.” He began to pace around the condo.
“I get that the place is a rental. But there are zero personal touches in the space. You left everything as is, huh? Whatever the decorator put in, you kept.”
She turned to watch him peruse her space. “It came fully furnished. No sense in changing things. You keep having me zip off to different parts of the country so it’s not like I’m here for long periods of time.” Where would they be heading for this latest case?
“That’s a convenient excuse, Emerson. But why don’t you try telling me the real reason there is nothing of you in this place?”
Emerson sucked in a sharp breath, completely caught off guard by his response. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, you heard me.” But Gray turned his head toward her. “Want my theory? You don’t have personal effects because you’re not putting down roots here. Just like you haven’t put down roots at the last three places you’ve lived. You rarely stay anywhere longer than a year.”
“My work keeps me busy. You, of all people, can surely understand that.” Her voice was steady.
“I understand a great deal. Far more than you realize.” He waved toward the bookshelves. Shelves that were carefully decorated with things that weren’t books. Vases. Small statues. Art pieces. “You’re an avid reader, Emerson. But no books?”
“I tend to read on an e-reader.” How did he know she was an avid reader? She hadn’t read around him.
“No doubt, plenty of people do that— I do it often. Makes it easier to travel with books. But, come on, I’m sure you’ve bought plenty of physical copies over the years.”
“Having books like The Mind of a Killer on your shelf hardly make guests feel comfortable.”
“That’s cute.”
Now her brows shot up. “It’s cute that I want to make people feel comfortable?”
“No, it’s cute that you act like you have guests. You don’t.”
“You’re here now. Hate to point it out to you, but that makes you a guest.”
“Hmm. I’m here because I forced my way in. You didn’t give me a spontaneous invitation.”
No, she had not.
He strolled toward her. Casual. Graceful.
That was something she’d noticed about him early on.
Despite his big size, the man was extremely soft on his feet.
Sneakily soft. Predatorily soft. Gray stopped directly before her.
“You didn’t invite any of your new FBI friends over.
No dinner with Trinity. No night cap with Rylan. ”
“Your point being…?”
“You don’t make friends easily, do you, Emerson?”
“No.” And she envied him that ability because she knew that he did have a close circle of friends. His former Marine buddies —the ones who’d bled and fought together. They had a bond that she found to be quite amazing.
“You don’t take lovers often, either, do you?”
Well, he’d just gotten very, very personal. In a blink. Tricky. Her chin notched up. “How often do you take lovers, Gray? All the time? Every other week?” A sharp snap entered her voice. Jealousy.
Great. Jealousy and envy, all in one two-minute period.
“I’m not a monk, but I don’t have one-night stands all the time, either.” A pause. “Two months ago.”
Her brows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“I was with my last lover two months ago.”
She did calculations in her head. Wait…
“Yeah, right before I met you. Funny thing, that. I met your infuriating and gorgeous self, and I couldn’t get you out of my head.” He turned away. “So playing your lover on this case won’t be hard for me. But it will be a struggle for you.”
“ What is happening here? And why on earth would it be a struggle for me?” He was making her head spin. Deliberately, she was sure. Emerson suspected that Gray was trying to keep her off-balance.
“You’re not used to being with a man. Having him touch you.
Call you endearments. Make public displays of affection.
” He ran his hand over the back of her sofa.
“Been two years, hasn’t it? Since that prick colleague of yours took your work and tried to pass it off as his own?
Don’t know why you ever got involved with that loser.
If you ask me, he was never worth your time. ”
“Gray!”
He turned his head toward her once again.
She swallowed. “How do you know about Nathaniel?”
He snorted. “Dr. Nathaniel Hadaway? Oh, easy. He came to see me today.”
He could not have shocked her more. Her ex had gone to see Gray? That very day? “You are kidding me.” If he was kidding, the joke was not funny. Not even remotely.
“Nope. Dead serious. Your Nathaniel?—”
“He’s not mine, and I am certainly not his.” Nathaniel had tried to steal her careful research. He’d put his name on her paper and submitted it to journals. Total jerk. But how had Gray learned what the other man had done? “Why did he come to see you?”
“He’d learned that you were working with the FBI. He wanted to let me know that I was making a mistake in taking you on as a partner. That you would, ah, I believe the words he used were ‘fracture in a field setting’ and that I should terminate whatever arrangement I had with you.”