Chapter Six #2
her, but instead her lips pursed in a seductive pout. “You seem skeptical.”
“So make me believe in magic.” He pulled out his wallet. “A hundred bucks says you can’t convince me you’re not cheating.”
“It’s not cheating,” she said gently. “It’s magic—”
“Yes, yes, magic.” Tim’s gaze dropped to her breasts. “Go for it, sweetheart.”
Now. Now she’d murder him.
But instead, her smile turned saccharine sweet. She picked up the deck, and the cards flew between her fingers. “Your wish
is my command. A hundred bucks.”
Interesting. The guy she’d been running from at the bar had had a wedding ring on, too.
Likes to target married men.
His brother had been right. But why?
Sejal was like a million pieces of a puzzle, but half of the pieces were chewed apart or missing.
As much as Krish would kind of love to see this play out, he needed to get to bed. He also didn’t want to deal with any potential
fallout from Tim losing his money. A bar fight would most definitely make them memorable. He walked forward.
Sejal saw him before her mark did, and her eyes widened.
Driven by an emotion he couldn’t quite place, Krish adopted a faux hurt expression and cleared his throat. “Leena. What is this? What are you doing?”
Tim straightened away from her and turned to face him with a glower. The glower subsided a little when he caught sight of
Krish’s face and size.
That was normal. Krish occasionally forgot that he wasn’t a cuddly-looking man, but he wasn’t allowed to forget for long.
The scar alone made most people give him a wide berth.
It used to hurt him, the snap judgments and stares, when he was young. But like the scar, with age his fucks had faded. He
didn’t much care what anyone assumed about him, or about subverting those assumptions.
Sejal hadn’t minded the way you looked, in that bar. She called you hot.
He was glad the lack of bright lights in the bar hid his flush. Funny how Sejal finding him attractive discombobulated him
more than anyone else finding him intimidating.
Tim rallied quickly. “Who’s Leena? I thought your name’s Mara?”
Krish snapped back into his role. Avi had always been the one with a flair for the dramatic. But Krish had grown up going to small schools in a nothing town where he’d had to bury his accent and assimilate, then went on to a privileged
college and grad program where he’d had to pretend like he belonged, like his childhood hadn’t been shaped by trauma and upheaval.
Then, as a grown-up, he’d had to work in an elitist city where life was all politics, even in his otherwise uneventful profession.
He could play a part, and knowing that he’d fooled multiple people so far, especially Sejal, was giving him confidence.
Is it good to be getting more confident in your lying ability?
He’d examine that later. It was serving him for now.
Krish shook his head at Sejal. “Are you giving fake names again, sweetheart? Mara’s the name she uses when she’s stepping
out on me.”
Sejal’s words came from between set teeth. “So sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else.”
Oh. What was that? She was annoyed with him?
He didn’t know why that didn’t bother him. He’d never deliberately tried to goad women before. In this case, though, she got
plenty of rises out of him. His long-buried sense of mischief didn’t mind turning the tables for once.
“Mistaken for someone else! How could you say that? I could never mistake the woman who bore me six children with anyone else.
I told her,” he said to Tim, “that the sixth child would be the end of it, the most I could manage, but she’s addicted to
the high of pregnancy. Every night now I find her trolling the bars for the father of her seventh. Now, come on, my love.
Little Tommy’s got that surgery in the morning.”
Sejal bared her teeth at him in a facsimile of a smile. She tilted her head in an obvious gesture to leave. “Again, I have
no idea who you are.”
“Wait, are you married, or aren’t you?” Tim grumbled.
Krish gave him a look of entreaty. “Sir, don’t we look married?”
The guy looked between the two of them, brow furrowed. “I mean, I guess.”
“You just think that because we’re the same color, Tim,” Sejal snapped.
His expression grew confused. “Do I? Oh wow. No, I don’t. I’m not racist.”
“Well, figuring this out will probably take you a while,” Krish said, holding out his hand for Sejal. “Milady?”
Sejal came to her feet and grabbed the cash stuffed into her cup. Krish handed Sejal his sweatshirt, wrapped his hand around
her arm, and tugged her away. Her skin was smooth and warm under his palm, but he did his best to ignore how it made him feel,
or the fact that he’d noticed at all. “Come along, dear.”
Her eyes sparkled up at him, but not like they’d sparkled when she first sauntered up to him and kissed the stuffing out of
him. He found he didn’t mind this sparkle, either, though. It was as honest as her lustful sparkle.
She pulled away from him as soon as they were outside and glared up at him. “What the hell was that?”
He gestured with his chin. “That was me making sure we’re up bright and early for Little Patty’s surgery.”
“I thought it was Tommy.”
“I can never keep our little rascals straight.”
“You lost me a cool hundo, Agent Anand.”
“And what if this guy got as tetchy about losing money as that other guy back in New York did, huh?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I would have handled it.”
“How?”
Her jaw set stubbornly. “Don’t worry. Take my word for it.”
“Like your word that you wouldn’t run away?” He glanced behind them. They were still far too close to the bar and the drunk
men within to feel secure, so he started walking.
She fell into step a beat later, which he was grateful for. It wasn’t like he could toss her over his shoulder and march her
back to bed, like a caveman.
Actually . . .
He tried to banish the image of a sexy, leopard-skin toga–wearing Sejal, but alas, his childhood crush on Wilma Flintstone was far too strong. His words were sharp when he spoke. “I didn’t want to have to deal with the local police over your little scam.”
“I don’t run scams, I’ll have you know.”
“Magic. Whatever you want to call it.” He let her go ahead of him up the rickety stairs to their room, which was also a mistake,
because he had to force himself not to look at the way her jeans stretched over her firm ass.
“It’s not whatever I want to call it. It’s what it is.”
And it was good, or at least what he’d seen was good, but he shouldn’t be complimenting her sleight of hand in his fake official capacity.
“Well, you can hustle some other cheater when we part ways, how about that?”
She turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Some other cheater. That’s your victim profile, isn’t it?” That sounded sufficiently FBI-ish. He opened their door.
“What victim profile?” She followed him inside their room and toed the door closed.
He lifted a finger. “Married.” Another finger. “An asshole.” Another finger. “Not very bright. Who hurt you anyway? Did some
rich jerk cheat on you?” If he squinted, Krish could kind of admire her bizarre moral compass. He, too, despised cheating.
Though he didn’t know if he’d be out on the streets running nightly scams to entrap and fleece adulterers. That was a personal
vendetta for sure.
She watched him with unreadable eyes, and for a second he wondered if she wasn’t going to answer him, but then she did, ignoring
the second question. “Wait, is that the profile? I hope you didn’t go to Quantico for that. And it’s not a hustle, and I don’t
have victims.”
It must have been fatigue that loosened his lips next, because his words came out more harshly than he intended. “Do your parents or aunt say their crimes are victimless, too?”
He didn’t expect her face to pale. Or for him to feel like he’d slapped a puppy.
Sejal’s lips pursed in a soundless whistle. “Huh. You’re pissed, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not.” Or if he was pissed, it wasn’t at her.
He didn’t care how she made her petty cash, and he certainly didn’t care about cheaters who were foolish enough to hand their
money to a pretty woman. She wasn’t the reason he’d been run ragged lately. That was purely the fault of his brother.
No, he corrected himself. It was Cobra’s fault. He must be more exhausted than he thought, if he was blaming his poor brother.
“I . . . I am tired. And I was annoyed to wake up and find you gone.” It wasn’t an apology, but hopefully she could read between
the lines.
Silence fell between them. Sejal finally broke it. “I have insomnia sometimes. And I’m not used to sleeping in jeans.”
What do you sleep in?
Except he wasn’t going to ask that. Asking that would sound perilously close to flirting, and a flirting man he was not. Krish’s
game was nil. Zero.
“I went over to have a beer and get my mind off of everything, and the next thing I know, I have a little crowd around me.”
She emptied her pockets, taking out the playing cards, the hotel key, and the pepper spray he’d given her. She unzipped the
sweatshirt and dropped it on the table, over the pepper spray. Her shoulders were rounded, her stance defensive. “Maybe I
just wanted to feel like I was good at something.”
“What do you mean?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve been failing at stuff a lot lately. I’ve tried to stay hidden for the past couple years, and
as it turns out, I probably got lucky that no one tracked me down before this. You found me. My ex found me. Couldn’t even
get on a plane to get away from either of you.” She flexed her fingers, like she still had cards in them. “It’s nice to feel
competent at something, is all.”
This was weird. He imagined that few people ever saw Sejal this raw and vulnerable, not cracking jokes or posturing.
But why two years?
Back in her apartment, she’d assumed her mother had sent him, so she clearly had some fear of Rushali. Why had she gone to
ground after her mother went to prison? Just because Avi had called her and tried to get her to come in to speak with him? She disliked
talking to law enforcement that much?
None of your business. “You almost got away from me,” he found himself saying.
She snorted.
“No, you did,” he insisted, and took a step forward. “And you did get away from your ex’s guy, right? Imagine how long TSA
probably detained him in a windowless room. He’s probably still there.”
“I mean, he’s white, so probably not.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that, and Sejal gave him a half smile in return. “Thanks for trying to make me feel better.”
As she walked to the bed, her tone turned business-like. “Okay, enough whining. Let’s sleep.”
Krish tore his gaze away from the long, lean line of her back and the perfect muscles of her shoulders and went over to his duffel bag on the floor.
Opening it, he took out a pair of sweatpants.
Her cell phone, the one he’d stolen from her apartment, was right underneath them, and he quickly tucked it out of sight. “Here.”
She turned and caught the pants he unceremoniously threw at her. “Oh. Thanks.”
While she changed in the bathroom, he double-checked the locks and dragged the chair in front of the door. When she came back,
he definitely didn’t notice the way his sweatpants bagged on her, or how gravity tugged them down to reveal her hip bones.
Or the brown strip of skin revealed between her top and the waistband, a strip that got wider when she pushed the covers back
and got into bed.
He busied himself adjusting the chair, which didn’t need to be adjusted, and then sat down in it. The hard back and spring
poking into his butt didn’t bode well for the most restful night, but he’d slept in worse places. This time when he fell asleep,
he’d will his body to wake up in case she decided to go knock over a bank at two a.m. or something.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m sleeping,” he said.
“You—you don’t have to do that. I won’t leave again.” There was a hint of relief in her eyes.
He thought of how adamant she’d been that they not sleep together. He’d been too tired earlier to puzzle through that, but
now he’d had some rest. Had her insomnia really been caused by the uncomfortable jeans she was wearing, or had she really
been that nervous about being in the bed with him?
Nope, nope, nope.
You will not get intrigued by this woman. She is your golden ticket, your bargaining chip. If he started to think of her as having vulnerabilities and fears, then she’d become far too real to him. Or worse, likeable.
And one couldn’t start liking bait. “I don’t mind. It’s safer this way; I’ll be more alert if anyone tries to break in. We
won’t be able to get away from every nasty situation by pretending that we’re married. I’m going to run out of names for our
kids eventually.”
She leaned over and turned off the lights. “Was that a joke, Agent Anand?”
It was good that she believed he was his brother, but he preferred it when she called him Krish. “I guess we’ll never know,”
he said.
The dark was pierced by her laugh. It was low and warm, shockingly so, like a dose of sunshine on a cloudy day, and he found
himself leaning into it. But then he mentally slapped himself. What was he doing? Slipping into a character unconsciously,
the character he’d played when she’d rushed up to him in that bar looking for help? A charming, bordering on flirtatious character?
There was a long silence, and he wondered if she’d gone to sleep. “Yes,” she said, into the dark.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’ve been cheated on.” Sheets rustled in the dark, like she was turning. “And he was a rich asshole.”
“Was it the guy who’s after us?”
“Yes. Now, good night, Agent Anand.”
He stared up at the ceiling in the dark, his follow-up questions swirling through his brain. Questions he had no right to
ask. Questions he shouldn’t even want to ask of someone he despised.
She’s bait. And don’t you forget it.