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Poppy already looks near tears, but she lets me take her hand and lead her to the couch, where we both sit. Her legs are crisscrossed in front of her, her hands clasped in her lap. She takes a big breath and resolutely says, “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me. All of it.”
I smile gently, knowing this is going to take fits and starts to get through. I’m not even sure where to begin.
“First, I want to say I’m sorry,” I begin, getting the most important thing out of the way. “I never meant to lie to you. I need you to know . . . I’m me, the same man you’ve known all along. I told you more than I have anyone in a long time, maybe forever. More truth, more me.” I pause, realizing, “The me that maybe I even forgot existed.”
“I’m sorry too. I was so . . . blindsided and scared and mad,” Poppy admits. “I felt betrayed, like you’d been using me.”
I try to interrupt her, but she doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise. “I know you weren’t. Hunter filled me in on some stuff, which is how I ended up at the auction. But not all of it. He let me think you were still . . . your cover.” Her jaw clenches at the memory. “Believe me, I bitched him up one side and down the other about that. Told him if he wanted to keep fucking around, he was gonna find out what’d happen when I shove Gary up his ass. After that, he was much more forthcoming, and I learned a lot when I was waiting for him to close the case.” She sounds proud of herself for intimidating Hunter, and honestly, that’s a scene I would’ve liked to have seen.
I wonder exactly what Hunter told her, but we can get to that later. That’s probably a conversation I need to have with Hunter, anyway, because Poppy doesn’t have clearance to know about some of our previous work together.
But beyond the details of every case, I need to make her understand everything that’s happened to bring me to this point, to her.
“The case,” I continue before I shake my head. In my mind, I go back years. “It started way before that. What I told you was true. I started with petty theft shit as a teen. Then I phased up to art, for real. I was on a job, and Hunter found me. He stopped me.”
I remember back to that job. I was stealing a post-modern work, one of those ink blot type things that look like something shrinks show their patients. There was a guy who wanted it for his office, so he hired me.
I was good then, and could’ve done it, but Hunter was watching the guy and knew about his hiring me. He played it cool, waited right until he could observe my skills, and put a hand on my shoulder literally seconds before I was about to make my move.
“He stopped me and offered me something else—to work with him. Not as a special agent or anything, but as . . . well, a freelancer of sorts, I guess? It’s complicated. But on the right side of the law. I laughed at first, but every time I turned around, there he was. Job after job, he was there, stopping me or frustrating me. I went months without a successful gig. He wore me down, and I agreed. I was a cocky bastard, but he taught me so much. We’ve been partners for years, through dozens of cases. This one, catching Mr. Big, was supposed to be a career-maker. Probably will be for Hunter.”
Poppy’s brows furrow. “Not yours?”
I shake my head, not delving into the likely limitations to my career path. That’s not the important part. Poppy is. “That’s what I’ve been working on the last few days. I gave them my notice. I’m out of the field. No more undercover, no theft. Not even for the good guys. Things are different now . . . with you. I don’t want to leave you, to risk us for some old painting.”
Her mouth drops open in surprise, and then she scrambles into my lap, straddling my hips and holding my cheeks so tightly she’s smushing my lips into a misshapen pucker. “I love you so much,” she says excitedly. “You growly bastard, I love you!”
The weird, almost insulting nickname is surprisingly cute in its accuracy, and I growl against her mouth as I kiss her back. “I love you too.”
Poppy and I exchange a long, deep kiss, and when she pulls back, she’s dancing in my lap and grinning. “What are you going to do then? Because I’m no sugar momma!” She taps my nose and lifts a finger to correct herself. “Except to Nut and Juice.”
