Chapter 33
big lie
. . .
Simi edited Sample
In-To-Deep Fed, Goodie-Two-Shoes Fed, and a serial killer that has New Orleans sweating!
NALAH
A killer is canceling the happily-ever-afters of new brides. The FBI’s brilliant strategy included sending me in undercover as a bride planning a rushed wedding.
Unfortunately, for the New Orleans Newlywed Neck Snatcher, this criminal profiler has crawled into the most twisted minds. Yep, I’m gonna kill their whole vibe.
The real threat is my fake fiancé. I’d rather elope with a hologram than marry that fine, strong Creole. If Texas Babineaux breaks my heart again, I might just schedule my own neck-snatching and save the killer the trouble.
TEXAS
Special Agent Nalah Cameron is the only real thing I’ve touched after years of lies. At Quantico, she was my whole world. When I left on assignment, woman ghosted me like I asked her to split the bill on Valentines.
Years later, I’ve promised myself no more undercover work. Yet here I am volunteering to put a ring on it. I’ll protect Nalah with my life.
Because Bébé, the only thing imaginary between us is her self-control when it comes to me. And it’s hanging on by a thread.
CHAPTER ONE
NALAH
Washington, DC-
Federal Bureau of Investigations Headquarters
My reflection in the ladies’ room mirror stared back at me, giving Issa Rae’s Insecure. Still, I tried again.
“Heyyy, Special Agent Texas Babineaux, how you doing?”
Ugh. Worse. That time it sounded like I cared about the man who forced me to rob the cradle.
For the millionth time, I tried to figure out why I’d dated him. Maybe I’d subconsciously wanted a baby before entering my thirties, and I ended up with that young man. Basically a child. But there was nothing childish about all of him—physically speaking.
Loving him and allowing him to play with my heart for half a decade had my skin flushed with hives, even if I hadn’t seen Texas in three years.
Ugh, I was a whole grown-ass woman. I had cuffed enough depraved serial killers for a Netflix show, yet my body broke out in a cold sweat thinking about him. Thanks for that, Tex.
Instead of returning to the emergency task force meeting, for which Agent Texas Babineaux was late—on brand for someone who lied with every breath—I glanced beneath the stalls behind me to ensure I was alone.
Strands of my honey blonde and purple curly, tapered pixie blinded me.
For a second, I imagined creepy painted toes.
This was an unpleasant side effect of my job.
I’d cuffed the Stinky Pinky—an Italian who replaced his victims’ unmanicured, big toes with rabbit’s feet—as if he felt homicidally disrespected by their lack of self-care.
Guess who never skipped on a pedi in the wintertime afterward?
This girl. I shoved rabbit-toe memories from my mind and focused on my old horror story, where I’m Texas’s fool again.
I’d always remember the day we met at the academy in Virginia.
That man had lied to me. Texas had said he was thirty-one during our first session together in Quantico.
I was twenty-eight then. I’d been a detective in upstate New York for years and needed a change.
Unfortunately, due diligence whispered in my ears, too late, the morning after we’d made love.
Turned out Texas hadn’t “decided to return to college” as he’d alleged.
The brotha was twenty-two! Six whole years younger.
The age difference wasn’t the issue. Lying, however, cooked my blood!
I had cussed him out all while escorting him and his buff body to his neat stack of clothing.
Two words stung him the most: Young Man!
Texas had been so remorseful. I had never seen a man whose body was that powerful and strong fall to his knees. That face, those muscles … all coupled with humility became my kryptonite.
Like a dummy, I forgave him, and our lives turned into The Blacklist—except I was both the target and the fool. He’d show up between covert ops. Once, he’d broken into my Harlem loft to drown me in my favorite flowers. He’d hit me with those soft lips and weaponized incentives.
Those same lips that spun tales to the cartels and other crime syndicates had me fully hypnotized.
He saw me, just long enough to keep the con going because that man was professionally full of it.
Forget clandestine missions, he needed daily fiber supplements and a tall glass of prune juice because he was full of it!
That habitual liar had told me who he was from day one.
I was thirty-six now. Smarter, stronger, wiser. I returned to the mirror, a smile softening my face, and prepared myself to address my old Child Tax Credit.
I cleared my throat. “Young man,” I said, voice silky soft, “have several seats. My team’s track record speaks for itself. We’ll catch the NOLA Newlywed Neck Snatcher. So, link up with your ATF buddies and cuff more drug dealers. Buh-bye, now!” Yes, honey. My face was giving, Stay in your lane!
Monologue complete, I headed for the meeting. The second I entered the hallway, my brain betrayed me. Dude had the audacity to respawn in my imagination. Big and fine. Dimples doing all that unnecessary dimpling. Dark skin smoother than my resolve.
The oxygen in my lungs evaporated. Every thought got evicted from my mind. And what the hell was common sense? Texas Babineaux had me in such a chokehold that he outshone the Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity seal as the elevator closed across the hallway.
Lala, girl, come back to reality!
I blinked. Oh, hell no! Why did imaginary-him just smirk?
“Nalah …?” Texas’s smooth smile vanished, and he roughed a hand over his diamond-cut jaw as he met me where the hallway intersected near the conference rooms. A dreadlock fell into his intense, deep-set eyes.
My skin fluttered everywhere his gaze landed, caressing every inch of me. His hands, eyes, and mouth, which had already memorized my form, still greedily devoured me.
I cut a quick left so hard I swore I heard tires screech. I’d run faster than a Subaru to escape that six-foot-six, gumbo-eating monster.
Was I going to let him turn my heart into his own inflatable bouncy house again?
No, ma’am. I visualized it, though, not that I wanted to.
I admonished my expertly trained mind for wandering.
As a behavioral profiler, I dropped myself into the dank recesses of a killer’s mind.
And then I dusted myself off, cuffed them, and checked that box.
Why couldn’t I check a box that indicated I’d never let him affect me again, much less work together again?
“Nalah, bébé, wait for me,” he called.
Nope. Forty-one pounds of Twix and Twinkies later, I’d learned to stop waiting for him. I had lost all the weight, and then some. I’d also chopped off my hair, commencing a new me.
I approached the glass-walled conference room and saw his reflection as he strolled over.
Yep, Texas never ran after anything, me included.
Opposite the glass, my team sat in the meeting.
Not much help, though. My partner Chan—another Behavior Analyst—went on paternity leave because commitment didn’t give him the hives.
That left me with my computer tech, Agent Ross Byrd, and his too many pineapples-and-palm-tree polos.
As if the collar aspect made him look official.
I grabbed the handle. A firm hand planted against the doorframe, blocking my attempt to pull the door open.
“Let go,” I gritted through clenched teeth.
“Nalah, bébé, that’s how you gone do me? I been starving for just the sight of you for three whole years.”
He used that voice like a weapon. Definitely delusional! And dammit, it was hypnotic and homicidal because he was pouncing on my heart again, and I hadn’t even turned around. Ugh. My so-called life was a bouncy house!
Special Agent in Charge Bacon, head of the task force, stopped briefing to glare at me through the glass wall. Excuse me? Anyone with a porky surname should always be happy.
Without turning around, because I wasn’t falling into that trap, I snapped, “You’re causing a distraction, agent.”
Dang, I should’ve inserted those two words—young man. However, I’d reserve that for times of intense weakness when facing temptation, which I was so not ready for.
“These damn glass walls,” Texas said, doing a little growl that compromised my equilibrium. “We need to chat, Lala.”
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