Liz answered the call in seconds. “I got your message. What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” she asked, and Angie could see her redheaded friend perched at her breakfast counter, still wearing her Nike running gear. In front of her was a glass of orange juice and a bowl, probably oatmeal.
“I’m already in Vegas,” Angie said, keeping her voice low. She didn’t want Ryan to hear, God no. “With Ryan Vail.”
“Holy crap, Angie. Did you not have a choice?”
“Yes and no. I mean, how could I tell Palmer I didn’t want to step in? The whole case would’ve gone down the drain.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The job.”
“But …”
“I know!” Angie said. “God, why weren’t you around yesterday? I have to sleep in the same bed with him.”
“Oh, sweetie, that is the least of your worries. Do you know what tantric massages are like?”
Angie closed her eyes. “Stop it. That’s not helpful.”
“Well, I’m not sure what I can do from here.” Liz lifted the iPad and brought it up until her face almost filled the screen. “You can do this. I know you can do this, because you are fierce and you are a woman to be reckoned with. Besides, Ryan isn’t about to cross any lines with you. In fact, I’d bet a million he’s going to go overboard to make sure nothing hinky could even be implied.”
“I wish I could fit in a run,” Angie said. “I’m exhausted, but I’m wired.”
“Find time later. What do you have to do right now?”
Taking a deep breath, Angie let her friend’s steady voice calm her down. “Shower. Dress like Angie Ebsen. Coordinate our stories so we don’t contradict each other. Go to the first session. Introductions, filling in forms. Then lunch, and after that, there’s some kind of bonding ritual. God, Liz, a bonding ritual.”
“Don’t think about anything past lunch. Introductions are a piece of cake. You know the backstory, you’re expected to be nervous. You’ll be fantastic.” Liz smiled broadly, and damn if that didn’t help, as well.
“Now go get clean, then put on your disguise. Break it down like your training schedule. I’ll be in the field, but you can call me during the day. I shouldn’t be late, though, so we can Skype tonight, okay?”
“Sounds good. Thanks.”
“No problemo. Later.”
The screen went dark, Angie clicked off the tablet and stepped into the shower in no time. She’d already solved her first problem. No way she could have lasted the week with people calling her Jeannie. Thankfully Brian had thought of a way out of that little mess. Angie would be her middle name, the one she preferred. The computer guys had woven it into all the paperwork and background references.
The story of the Ebsens would remain intact. Unfortunately the team had used a lot of Jeannie’s personal history for Mrs. Ebsen’s childhood, and because Jeannie and Ryan had known each other so long, no time had been wasted filling in all those details.
Now those blanks would, by necessity, have to be replaced with Angie’s past. And Ryan needed to give her the Cliff’s Notes version of his history, as well.
With the shower running, she stripped, grabbed her toiletries and used her time to visualize herself as Angie Ebsen. She imagined the way she’d carry herself as someone wealthy, who had high-level expectations about service and general conversation. She could see herself playing the part, she really could, up until the point where she had to act as though she was in love with Ryan.
God, this was going to be tricky. Even in her own head, all she could picture was the humiliation of that single horrifying moment if, no, not if … when Ryan figured out that she still wanted him. How he’d been the man in her fantasies for more nights than she cared to admit.
She stared down at the unbelievably expensive engagement and wedding rings on the third finger of her left hand. She was so screwed.
RYAN REALIZED HE’D BEEN staring at the bathroom door for a while and that he might want to move before Angie finished with her shower. He shook his head as he turned back to the dresser to get ready for their first day of marriage.
He supposed they’d have to talk about it now. It being the distance they’d been maintaining for over a year. The polite nods without eye contact, the apologies that followed accidental touches. Walking on eggshells like that at work had been bad enough, even though their jobs required minimal interaction. But behaving that way here would ruin the mission.
What they needed was to be all over each other. Just shy of obsessively on his part, a little less so on hers. Jeannie and he had been A-OK with that plan. They’d practiced until they’d been able to stop cracking up with each vaguely sexual touch. But with Angie he faced the opposite problem.
Every touch was sexual with nothing vague about it. Hell, the slightest brush of Angie’s skin had caused a chain reaction that left him unsettled and heading toward hard. Thank God he wasn’t a teenager anymore, or he’d have had to walk around the office with a textbook handy to cover himself. As it was, he always managed to make a quick exit or distract himself long enough to settle down, but that wouldn’t be a viable option when they were in public here.
He pulled out a pair of khakis and a striped polo shirt, selected, along with the rest of his wardrobe, by a personal shopper who specialized in outfitting guys who made fifty times Ryan’s yearly salary. Even his boxer briefs and socks were ridiculously expensive, and he paid attention to his clothes.
The sound of the shower registered and, of course, his brain went straight to a very detailed picture of Angie naked with water running down her chest, a drop hesitating on the edge of her rigid nipple, streaking down her stomach only to get caught in the trimmed thatch of dark hair that signaled the approach to his happy place. Never mind that he hadn’t actually seen her naked. He had a good eye and could connect the dots.
And right there was the crux of the problem. The big, elephant-size problem.
In order to make the sting operation a success, they would have to break every boundary they’d very carefully set in place, consciously or not, at the risk of his libido overtaking his good sense.
Angie was not the kind of woman who would make exceptions for special circumstances. Even if they hadn’t been colleagues, she wasn’t his type of woman at all.
Physically? No question. She was a wet dream even when she wasn’t in the shower. But he suspected she wanted someone she could count on. Someone who would be there for the long haul. A man who would be an excellent husband and father. A stand-up kind of guy to share her life with.
He wanted a woman who didn’t particularly care who he was, as long as there was a bed and he could keep up his end of the bargain.
So not only were he and Angie required to mix business with pleasure for an entire week, they already knew that getting too close was playing with fire. Hell, all they’d done was consider, for like five minutes, hooking up, and they’d both backed off so fast they’d left skid marks.
This arrangement did not bode well. For either of them.
As soon as he was finished dressing, he speed-dialed Jeannie.
“I was going to call you.”
Ryan sat on the edge of the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees. “How is this gonna work?”
“She can do it,” Jeannie said, in her I’m being serious voice. “We spoke last night and she’s completely committed to getting the job done. Just spend as much time as you can this morning going over your personal histories. Between the two of you, you’ll make it happen. I doubt there’s going to be anything heavy on the first day.”
“We can