Chapter 11 #2
“And you’re just an analyst who reported an anomaly.”
She held his gaze. The two incidents had nothing in common, but he was right—they both felt guilty for things that weren’t their fault.
He went to his keyboard and tapped a few keys, staring at the monitors.
Katherine picked up the sandwich. It wouldn’t hurt to eat a few bites and make him happy. She took two, then set it down. “There. Premium package satisfied?”
He glanced over. “Not even close.” He grabbed the plate. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“You’re taking a break.”
“I can’t leave this.”
“You can for ten minutes.”
She shook her head but stood. Her muscles protested and she stretched and yawned. “I don’t have ten minutes.”
“Yes, you do.” He offered his hand. “Come on.”
She stared at his large, steady hand, familiar now in ways she hadn’t expected.
He’d cleaned glass from her palm. He’d placed her hand against the biometric panel.
He’d covered her shaking fingers after the federal plate reveal.
He was offering it now, not because she needed help walking, but because he understood that leaving the desk felt like losing ground.
She took it. His fingers closed around hers, warm and firm, and the pressure in her chest loosened a notch.
Priss hopped down from the box and trotted after them.
They left the office and walked down the corridor. Katherine felt the pull of the papers behind her as surely as if someone had tied a thread between her ribs and the Vance boxes. The deadline ticked in her head.
Jasper didn’t speak as low voices drifted from the conference room and a door clicked shut somewhere farther off. He dropped off her plate in the kitchen, then led her to the common area. She came to a dead stop.
A ping-pong table stood in the center of the room. Two paddles sat on the green table beside a small white ball. Someone had shoved the beanbags into a corner and pushed the coffee table against the wall to make space.
She turned to look at him. “You got a ping-pong table.”
“You can thank Vivi.”
“Because you asked for it?”
“I may have filed a mental-health requisition.”
Her throat tightened in the most inconvenient way. Of all the things that had happened in the past two days, this nearly undid her. “You shouldn’t have done this,” she said.
“Probably not.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.” He picked up a paddle and spun it once in his hand. “You said you were mean at ping-pong.”
“I also said I hadn’t played in years.”
“Sounds like backpedaling.”
Her brows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying, if you’re worried I’ll beat you, there’s no shame in admitting it.”
The noise in her head went quiet enough for one clear, offended thought to rise above it. “I’m not worried you’ll beat me.”
“You sure? Because you have the look of a woman protecting a reputation she can’t defend.”
Priss jumped onto the couch and settled in as if preparing for drama.
Katherine crossed her arms. “I have an active federal conspiracy to unravel. I don’t have time for games.”
“This is not a game. This is a tactical neurological reset.”
Her mouth curved before she could stop it. “Is that so?”
“It’s a real term. Ask Vivi. She taught it to me.”
She looked at the table, then at the paddle in his hand. The deadline still sat inside her chest. The fear still sat beneath it.
But so did a spark of competition, and that felt blessedly alive. “Five minutes,” she said. “I can beat you in five minutes or less, and then I’m going back to work.”
Jasper’s smile was slow enough to be dangerous. “There she is. Ping-pong princess.”
She snatched the other paddle from the table. “Serve.”
He did.
The ball snapped across the table, fast and low, and Katherine’s stiff body responded before her mind could interfere. She stepped right, wrist turning, and sent it back cross-court with more force than she expected.
Jasper got to it easily. He moved like a man who’d been trained to trust his body in far more dangerous circumstances than a ping-pong match. His return skimmed the net.
She caught it on the bounce and sent it to his backhand.
His eyebrows rose. “Okay.”
“Did you think I was lying?”
“I thought you were exaggerating.”
“That was your mistake.”
The point went on long enough for her lungs to wake up.
The ball clicked against the table, then against paddles, then table again, quick and rhythmic.
She’d forgotten the sound and the satisfaction of tracking speed, spin, angle, and weakness all at once.
It wasn’t paperwork. It wasn’t survival.
It wasn’t the shape of a masked man’s mouth or the wording of an Agency memo.
It was a white ball, a green table, and Jasper Perault across from her with focus narrowing his eyes.
He won the point.
Katherine stared at the ball as it rolled under the table. “That was warm-up.”
“Convenient, princess.”
She retrieved the ball and served before he finished smirking.
Jasper was quicker, more athletic, and far too smug when he placed the ball exactly where she had to stretch for it.
Katherine was more precise, more strategic, and ruthless enough to aim for the corner where his paddle lagged by a fraction when she drew him too far left. He won the first game by two points, and the satisfaction on his face was completely unacceptable.
“No,” she said.
He leaned on his paddle. “No?”
“Rematch.”
“I thought you had documents to save.”
“I do. After I destroy you.”
He laughed, and the sound moved through her with more force than it should have. She ignored it and served hard.
The second game was better because she stopped trying to be careful.
Her sweater sleeves slid down over her hands twice before she shoved them to her elbows.
Her hair came loose from its knot and fell around her face.
She missed one shot because she was laughing too hard at Jasper’s offended expression when Priss chose that moment to leap off the couch onto the table and bat the ball under a chair.
“That’s interference,” Jasper said.
“She’s on my team.” Katherine winked.
Priss emerged from beneath the chair with the ball in her mouth, dropped it at Katherine’s feet, and chirped.
“See?” Katherine said. “Excellent judgment.”
Jasper pointed his paddle at the cat. “You’re lucky you’re a hero.”
Priss sat and began washing her face.
By the time Katherine won the second game, she was breathing hard, her cheeks were warm, and the room had lost the edges it had carried all day.
The deadline still existed. Upton still wanted her back at Langley. The man in the mask was still out there. But for twenty minutes, she’d moved her body without feeling trapped in it. It felt good.
She set the paddle down with great dignity. “Tie.”
Jasper looked at her as if she had just committed fraud in front of witnesses. “We have to play a third game.”
“I have to get back to the papers.”
He folded his arms, still smiling, and her pulse skipped. “You’re leaving before I can reclaim dominance.”
“You never had dominance.”
“I won the first game.”
“Beginner’s luck.”
He laughed again. She soaked up the sight of him standing across the ping-pong table with his hair slightly mussed from the game, his eyes warmer than they’d been all day, his body relaxed in a way she hadn’t seen since before the intruder.
While playing, they’d been something other than hunted archivist and protector, something easier and more dangerous because it felt almost normal.
“Thank you,” she said.
A crease formed between his brows. “For losing?”
She pointed at the table. “For this.”
He nodded. “You needed a reset.”
“I did.”
“So you’re admitting I was right.”
“You could pretend to be humble.”
The smile turned wicked. “I’m saving my energy for the rematch.”