Chapter 25
The thief/con artist Cole’s hacker friend sent to break into Eric and Stella’s house was not the kind of woman who made you immediately feel good about yourself.
Hadley didn’t typically lack confidence. She knew she cleaned up pretty good, and if the lighting was right, she could graduate from cute to beautiful. But this woman?
Total fucking smoke show.
Flowing red hair that looked like it was moving even when it wasn’t, flawless complexion under what was probably hundreds of dollars of expertly applied makeup, clothes that looked like they’d been ripped off a model’s back on an Italian runway, features and proportions perfect enough to make a Barbie doll look frumpy… yep, Tenley Taylor had it all.
She wanted to hate her on sight, but the moment she stuck out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Tenley,” Hadley suddenly felt completely at ease.
Tenley was so stunning it made her look a little alien when she was standing next to normal folk, but the big, open smile she gave Hadley told her everything she needed to know.
Tenley was a girl’s girl and she was here to help.
For a fee, of course. Tenley had made it abundantly clear that she didn’t help anyone for free. Something about her own personal criminal code of ethics. Hadley respected it. After all, why should anyone work for free?
It didn’t hurt that Tenley was one of the most happily married women Hadley had ever met. She bragged about her husband every chance she got. Hadley found it totally charming.
She was also pleased that Cole’s expression didn’t move beyond vague, barely there politeness the entire time he explained their situation to Tenley. He looked at her like Hadley looked at…furniture. She appreciated the fact that it was there, but she wasn’t ever going to be tempted to fuck it.
Wait…that analogy went off the rails in a really weird way. Had all the great sex—and there’d been a lot of it—scrambled her brain? Had she been fucked so hard and so well that she had brain damage? Was that a thing?
Hadley tried to mentally slap herself back into the moment. What mattered now was that while Cole prepped Tenley on what she might encounter at Eric’s place, where she needed to place devices, and how much time she had to get in and out, Hadley had a dinner to prepare.
Now that she could handle.
So, while Tenley and Cole talked about spy stuff and breaking and entering, Hadley popped the chicken she’d marinated into the oven with some vegetables and yeasty rolls.
For dessert, the pie she’d picked up at the overpriced farmer’s market in town would have to do, because she’d be damned if she was making a crust from scratch for a couple of strangers.
Crust from scratch was only for people you loved.
She’d bet anything that Cole would love her grandma’s apple pie. Now that was a buttery, rich, to-die-for crust. When all this was over, she’d make it for him. He was going to…
Wait a minute. Wait just a fucking minute.
Crust from scratch was only for people you loved.
No. No. No. She agreed that it’d be just sex, one night only! She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to fall for a man first ever again. And here she was, ready to make pie crust from scratch after she’d promised him—after he’d made her promise—nothing but a one-night stand.
She needed to stay calm. These extra warm, fuzzy feelings she was having could just be the lingering remnants of all the great orgasms she’d had.
She could stick to the agreement. Sure, Cole was unexpectedly kind.
Brave. Protective. Smart. Kind of grumpy, but also ridiculously hot, funny in a dark, dry kind of way.
But that didn’t mean she was falling for him.
Oh, who the fuck was she kidding? She’d been halfway in love with him since he gave her that damn road safety kit. She’d been lying to herself that what she’d been feeling for him ever since was just lust and a minor, almost insignificant little crush. It was time to face a very inconvenient truth.
She was falling in love with Cole Clayton.
Oh, Lord. This was bad. A few good days, a dozen or so fantastic orgasms, and she was ready to throw herself at him, prepared to beg him to love her back. She’d broken her one and only dating rule and broken it a big, messy, irrevocably stupid way.
If she kept going down this path, she’d be proposing marriage to him in no time with a beautiful golden pie crust. He’d respond with confusion and a giant hell no. The imagined humiliation and pain that scenario caused forced a little cry of dismay from the back of her throat.
Cole practically vaulted over the marble kitchen island and was at her side in three strides. “Talk to me,” he said. “What happened?
She swallowed hard as his gaze swept over her, searching for blood, burns, and missing limbs. “I’m, uh, what?”
“You made a noise. Where are you hurt?”
Was in her heart an appropriate answer? Should she tell him she’d just hurt her own feelings by letting her innate sense of romantic whimsy take over her life—again? “I, uh, just remembered I forgot to buy fresh rosemary for the chicken.”
One brow lifted. He didn’t believe her. She could see it all over his face. But she’d be damned if she was going to tell him the truth. “You’re shaking,” he said quietly.
Yep. Like a fucking leaf. And it was frankly just rude that he’d not only noticed but said something about it. “It’s nothing.”
Cole took her hand, turned it over, traced his thumb over the pulse point pounding in her wrist. “Sounded like you were hurt.”
“I actually thought a giant spider had run across your shoe,” Tenley said from the other room. “That’s for sure the noise I make when a spider gets too close to me.”
Cole ignored her, repeating, “It sounded like you were hurt.”
The concern in his voice made something twist low in her belly. He sounded…shaken. Because of her. Because he thought—
She took a deep breath. This wasn’t helping her delusions of romantic grandeur. “There was no need to come running. I’m not hurt,” she said, staring hard at their joined hands because if she looked at his face, she might do something stupid.
“Side effect of the job, I guess,” Cole said. “I hear that sound, I come running.”
Tenley snorted. “Sure. Yeah. The job. I’m sure every fake husband acts like Captain America rushing in to save Bucky Barnes when his fake wife makes a tiny sound of distress. Not weird at all.”
There it was again. That squeeze in her chest. That stupid, swoony feeling that had nothing to do with a lack of fresh rosemary. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I do.”
The intensity in his eyes was killing her. It should be illegal for a man who’d insisted on a one-night stand agreement to look at anyone like that.
Tenley moved into the kitchen and leaned on the island, resting her chin in her palm. “If this is your pretend relationship, I can’t wait to see what you’re like when you both admit how you actually feel.”
Cole took a step back and the loss of his nearness hit her way harder than it should have. “Tenley?” he said, his eyes still on Hadley.
“Yeah?”
“No one likes you.”
She chuckled. “Yeah. I get that a lot.”
On a normal day, Hadley would’ve loved the shit out of their brother/sister-type banter. But with the revelation that she was firmly in the middle of a one-sided romance that was supposed to be a one-night stand, she wasn’t having much fun. “Can you go back to talking about the mission?”
Tenley waved her off. “Break in, plant the sleeping bugs and the acoustic tool, search for any proof our guy is a sleeper agent. Easy peasy. So simple even a boy could do it. I’m way more interested in whatever it is the two of you have going on.”
Cole ignored her—again—and sighed. “You’re truly OK?” he asked Hadley.
She forced a nod. “I am.”
His eyes narrowed on her for a second or two like he was trying to pry the information directly from her brain using nothing but the sheer force of his will.
She was ashamed to admit it almost worked.
She squirmed a little. But fortunately, he gave up before she could spill her guts.
“I’ll go double check everything,” he muttered before wandering off to the garage where his impressive collection of extra surveillance equipment lived.
Tenley was quiet for all of ten seconds before she said, “Soooooo…you just realized you were falling in love with Mr. Tall Dark, and Dour out there, huh?”
Hadley slapped a hand over her mouth when a dismayed gasp escaped her. Son of a bitch! The last thing she needed was Cole rushing back in here like Sir fucking Galahad. When he didn’t rush in and vault over the counter, she hissed, “Don’t say a word to him, OK? The timing is, well, it’s atrocious.”
Tenley snorted. “Honey, if everyone waited until the timing was right to fall in love, the human race would die out.”
“I know. It’s just that…”
“Let me take a guess,” she said. “He’s a grumpy loner, and even though your chemistry—and I’m guessing, the sex I’m sure you two had recently—is smokin’ hot, he thinks he’s not a good a relationship bet, so you made some kind of it’ll-only-happen-just-this-once agreement, and now that the agreement is done, you’re horrified to find that you have indeed done the one thing he told you not to do and developed feelings for him. ”
Hadley’s jaw dropped. “How the hell do you know all that? Are you a psychic thief?”
Tenley laughed out loud. “I’m not psychic. Just good at reading people. And you and the big guy out there are an open book. Besides, I have some experience with people who think they aren’t cut out for relationships, then get hit upside the head with the two-by-four of love.”
“Your husband?” she asked, sympathetic.
“No. I meant me,” she added wryly. “All the best criminals are loners. Falling for my husband made me rethink a lot of things about my life and career.”
Hadley had so many questions she wasn’t sure what to ask first. She eventually settled on, “But…it all worked out, right? I mean, you’re happy?”
Tenley’s answering smile was damn near blinding in its sincerity. “I’m the happiest person you’ll ever meet, sugar plum. At least, I will be until you finally tell our favorite spy out there how you feel. I’m pretty sure he’ll take the title after that.”
Hadley considered that for a moment, then said, “You know how Cole said no one liked you?”
“I remember.”
“He was wrong. I like you. I might even love you a little.”
Tenley smirked. “Oddly enough, I get that a lot, too.”