chip on his shoulder and badass attitude, Riley McDade put all those things in question.
“The fictional Aston Tate was born in L.A.,” she heard Riley say. Not to her. He was obviously going over the undercover identity info stored on his PalmPilot. “He’s twenty-nine—just two years younger than me, so I shouldn’t have a problem with that. He collects Civil War memorabilia—I’ll have to fake that part. He’s a huge L.A. Lakers fan—won’t have to fake that. And he’s a jackass.”
Tessa glanced at the PalmPilot he had cradled in his hand. “It says that in the file?”
He shook his head. “No, that’s my opinion. Anybody who’d go to these lengths to have the perfect heir is a jackass. He should be satisfied with what Mother Nature intended him to have. Or not have.”
That tension in her neck went up a notch.
Tessa decided it was a good time to sit quietly and stare out the limo window. Maybe that way she wouldn’t have to respond to Riley’s comment, but her silence didn’t do a thing to ease the deep ache in her heart.
“I’m pulling into the parking lot of the clinic now,” Chris Ingram, the limo driver and fellow SIU agent, informed them through the intercom.
It was almost show time. Tessa took a deep breath. Steadying herself. And hating that steadying herself was even necessary. Why had fate chosen her for this assignment anyway? Talk about rubbing salt in a wound.
A baby mission.
One where she had to pretend to be a hopeful parent who desperately wanted to conceive the perfect child. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to fake the desperately-wanted-to-conceive part. All she had to do was open a vein and let her true feelings flow. In that respect, she was the ideal agent for this ops.
Tessa clung to that.
And hoped it was enough to get her through.
Because in another respect, she was as ill-suited for this as Riley was.
Maybe even more.
Both of them had more than enough emotional baggage to sink this mission before it even got off the ground. And for her, it was emotional baggage that she should have gotten rid of years ago. Bottom line: a baby couldn’t change what had happened in her own childhood. It couldn’t change what her father and she had endured because her mother had walked out on them when she was a child. It couldn’t change any of that. But the emotional baggage could definitely interfere with what she needed to do now on this mission.
If she let it interfere, that is.
She wouldn’t.
Riley clicked off the PalmPilot, essentially erasing its memory. A necessary security precaution. “Want to practice your bio?” he asked.
“Not really.” She already had it committed to memory. Isabel Tate. Twenty-nine. Tessa’s own age. No hobbies. No real life—something that Tessa could definitely relate to. Isabel was essentially the reclusive trophy wife of an equally reclusive trophy husband. A marriage of new money and blue blood.
“There’ll be lots of personal contact between us when we’re in there,” Riley commented. “And afterward while we’re at the second appointment.”
“I know. Loving couple and all that. I understand what we have to do, Riley.”
He nodded. Paused. And otherwise continued to grill her with those storm-gray eyes. “You haven’t been in a deep-cover situation like this before.”
That improved her posture. He’d better not be questioning her abilities. Or reminding her that her father had appointed him as team leader.
“Are you trying to make conversation or a point?” she asked.
“Definitely a point. At a minimum, we’ll probably have to kiss while Fletcher has us under surveillance.”
Oh, that.
She’d thought about kisses all right, along with other intimate behavior that might be expected of a happily married couple.
Embraces.
Long, lingering looks.
Caresses.
It wouldn’t be especially comfortable. Or easy. But then, there wasn’t much about this assignment that would be easy. Still, she’d do it. There were a lot worse things than kissing Riley.
With that reminder, she glanced at his mouth. Sensual, she supposed. After another glance, Tessa took out the supposed. Yes, his mouth was sensual, and why the heck she’d noticed it, she didn’t know.
“Well?” Riley prompted when they stepped out of the limo.
“Well, what?” Tessa asked, already worried that her daydreams about his mouth had caused her to miss something important.
He mumbled some profanity and wiped his hand through his stealth black hair that fell several inches down his neck. The swipe and the gusty October wind only mussed it more, but it still managed to look fashionably disheveled. A term that actually described his overall appearance.
“You understand what we might have to do in there, right?” he asked, obviously irritated.
“It’s not an issue,” she assured him, tossing that irritation right back at him. “If the situation dictates a kiss, then kiss away.”
But both knew it might not be limited to just a kiss.
After all, they were about to enter a fertility clinic. Where virtually anything could be expected of them. Anything. And the man who’d be expecting it was the very person who’d created a dark cloud over the Special Investigations Unit. He’d killed one of their own and gotten away with it.
So far.
As long as Fletcher was free, the dark cloud would stay. Over Riley. Over her father. Over the entire department.
And she could do something about that.
She could finally rid her father of the one black mark on his otherwise spotless career record: his failure to close out Colette’s murder.
Maybe then…
“Where are you right now?” she heard Riley whisper. There was yet more annoyance in his voice. He slipped his arm around her waist and eased her closer to him. Not exactly a loving gesture, either. He gave her a nudge.
Tessa glanced at him and was on the verge of asking him what he meant, but those raised questioning eyebrows said it all.
“I’m focused,” she assured him.
He made a sound to indicate he didn’t believe her.
She made a sound to indicate she didn’t care what he thought.
It was going to be a long mission.
They entered the brownstone building and Tessa paused in the doorway. To get her bearings. To observe. To make sure she was indeed focused.
She
