Overnight Male

“My sister’s kids,” he said. “She sends me a lot of their work. Since she became a mom, she thinks everyone needs the influence of children in their lives. Makes them more human, she says. The grown-ups, I mean,” he hastily qualified. “Kids, any kids, she thinks are already pretty much perfect.”

“Well, except for the part about them being odious little miscreants,” Lila said.

He laughed at that, as if she’d made a joke. Funny thing was, she hadn’t been. She didn’t much care for children. She supposed they had their purposes—mostly to serve as warnings to always use birth control—but she didn’t want any in her own life. She studied Joel more closely, trying to discern if he was being sarcastic or maudlin when he talked about the alleged perfection of his nieces and/or nephews. Neither, she finally decided. Weird as it seemed, he was just being matter-of-fact. He actually agreed with his sister.

Huh. How about that.

She asked, “So are you one of those people who doesn’t think life can be complete without the Dutch Colonial in the suburbs, the two-point-five kids and the dog named Sparky?”

He smiled in that should-have-diminished-his-potency-but-didn’t way again. “Well, the house could be a Tudor and the dog could be named Pal and life would still be complete, but…” He left the sentence unfinished, but the gist of his feelings came through just fine.

Lila was surprised by the little stab of disappointment that jabbed her chest when she heard him voice the sentiment. So what if Joel Faraday had bought into that suburban myth of home, hearth and riding mower? she asked herself. So what if he was the settling-down kind? So what if he wanted a traditional life with a traditional partner in a traditional community? What did she care? If that was the sort of thing he wanted, it just hammered home how ill suited the two of them were. Because that kind of life would strangle her.

And why the hell was she even thinking in terms of the two of them suiting each other in the first place? That was beyond nuts. Nobody suited Lila. And she sure as hell wasn’t looking to suit anyone herself.

He started to speak again, even got as far as saying, “But the thing is—” when the doorbell chimed, heralding the arrival of their driver. By the time they were seated in the back of the big black Town Car, however, Joel must have forgotten what he’d intended to tell her, because he never revisited the topic. Instead, he started a new one.

“So since you and I are going to be working together so closely for this assignment—”

“You mean living together?” Lila interjected, already knowing that the plan OPUS had outlined would involve their sharing living space. She’d read the entire dossier through last night and knew all the particulars of their undercover operation—at least, the particulars to which OPUS had decided she would be privy for now. There was no telling what Joel knew that she didn’t. He was, after all, the one in charge.

Talk about your odious little miscreants.

“Yeah, that,” he said. And if she hadn’t known better, she would almost have sworn he sounded a little flustered about the prospect of shacking up, even as a job requirement. “So maybe we should know a little more about each other’s habits ahead of time.”

“Like what?” she asked.

He looked at her in a way that indicated he didn’t like her asking him the question he’d intended her to answer first. But he replied anyway, “Like the fact that I’m the early-to-bed and early-to-rise type, but I suspect you’re not.”

“Oh, really?” she asked. “So what happened to Mr. Early-to-Rise this morning?”

Joel expelled an exasperated sound. “Okay, so today Mr. Early-to-Rise overslept a little.”

“Actually, he overslept quite a bit.”

“He hasn’t been getting as much sleep as usual,” Joel continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “People keep breaking in to his house in the middle of the night and trying to cuff him.”

Lila smiled. “Some people are so rude.”

“Aren’t they, though?”

“If I were you, I’d want a piece of someone’s hide.”

He arched his eyebrows at her suggestively, opened his mouth to say something in retort, then seemed to think better of it. Which was a shame, because Lila found herself looking forward to that retort. Among other things.

Ultimately, he only said, “I think I’ll just settle for alerting the authorities.”

“Oh, good idea,” she said. “The authorities always know the right thing to do.”

“Anyway,” he said, circling back to the original topic, “as I said, something tells me you’re not the early-to-rise type.”

She grinned. “Wow, you’re really good at this fieldwork. I can see why they gave you this assignment. That was a brilliant deduction.”

“Hey, I work for an information-gathering arm of the U.S. government,” he told her with clearly affected self-importance. “It’s my job to make brilliant deductions.”

She waved off his concern quite literally. “Don’t worry about it. I’m highly adaptable. I can match my hours of operation to yours with no problem.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. “Something about the way you said that indicates you’d rather not.”

This time Lila shrugged off his concern literally. “I prefer to work at night—big surprise—but when the assignment calls for daytime activity, I don’t have a problem with it.”

“You’re just not as happy working during the day.”

“Happiness isn’t a word that appears in my job description,” she told him.

“But you’d still be happier if this was one of those nighttime infiltration things, wouldn’t you?”

There was no reason to deny it, so Lila relented. “Yeah. I’d be happier if it were. But—”

“Why?” he interrupted before she could finish.

She hesitated before replying, just long enough to let him know she resented his interruption. Finally, though, she said, “Because I work better at night.”

“I beg to differ,” he contradicted.

Lila gaped at him. She wasn’t used to people contradicting her, especially as immediately and absolutely as Joel just had.

He obviously understood the reason for her silence, because he told her, “I’ve studied the particulars of every assignment you’ve carried out for OPUS, Lila, and statistically speaking, you’re always very effective regardless of what you’re doing or when you’re doing it.”

A thrill of something warm and fluid purled through her when he addressed her by her first name. She told herself she should be offended at the familiarity and his lack of protocol. Then again, she’d only a short time ago been giving herself permission to drop protocol until they arrived in Cincinnati, and she herself had been thinking of him not as Virtuoso, but as Joel. Besides, she kind of liked the way her name sounded when it was spoken in that deep, velvety baritone.

Then the essence of what he’d told her finally gelled. “You’ve read over every one of my assignments?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t kept track, but considering the years she’d put in with OPUS, the total number must be staggering. And God knew how many pages were devoted to each.

“Once I knew we’d be working together, I needed to familiarize myself with you,” he said. Immediately he corrected himself, “I mean…with your methods. How else was I going to do that if not by reading about your standard M.O. when you work?”

“You could have learned about my standard M.O. by looking at a handful of my most high-profile assignments. Then you could have looked at my personnel file for anything else you wanted to know.”

He schooled his features into what Lila supposed was meant to be a bland expression. But it was in no way convincing. Her sarcasm of a moment ago had been warranted—he really wasn’t equipped to be working out in the field. What the hell was OPUS thinking, letting him tag along?

“Your personnel file,” he said, “is off-limits to everyone except a few people who are a hell of a lot higher up the ladder than me.”

Lila couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that escaped her at that. “Right. And God knows they never leak any information about me to anyone else in the organization. I mean that whole rumor about me having tried to murder the Big Guy must have started with the lunchroom ladies in the OPUS cafeteria.” She sighed and lifted a hand to rub her forehead in an effort to relieve a fast-approaching headache. “Look, um, Virtuoso, don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I’m not doing—”

“Virtuoso,” she said again.

“Joel,” he corrected her. “Please call me Joel. I know it’s not protocol, but we’re not in Cincinnati yet, and I feel like an idiot whenever someone uses my code name. It just seems like such a Hollywood affectation.”