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“Hey, Cal. Nice to see you again.”
Wait. Something’s hinky here.
My pulse shoots through the roof, and my heart plummets to the floor and flops around like a fish on a dock as realization dawns. So much races through my mind that I can’t track it all.
But I know it’s not good.
Whatever is happening here spells doom! Doom, I say. Doom!
Why on earth is she here? Shouldn’t she look as surprised to see me as I am to see her?
She doesn’t. There’s not a speck of shock on her heart-shaped, lightly freckled face.
Shep angles his body to place himself in my line of sight. “You know her?”
I can’t speak outwardly, but inside, I’m screaming,fuck yes, I know her. Intimately. Every inch of her body is branded into my memory. Her scent lingers on my bed sheets.
“Oh, we’ve met,” Mia answers proudly, complete with batting eyelashes.
What is happening right now? Did that wormhole suck me up again?
Doom! Doom!
Maybe I never woke up this morning, and this is all a bad dream. Losing the promotion, the system getting hacked, and Mia waltzing into Redleg. All of it’s just a nightmare brought on by acute stress.
Makes perfect sense. Mystery solved. Any moment now, I’ll wake up in my warm, comfy bed.
Boss claps his hands, drawing a speck of my attention away from the vixen on the other side of the conference table. She holds my gaze, not backing down one iota.
My mind works furiously to piece together what’s happening while my heart pounds so loudly that I wouldn’t be surprised if Peggy hears it from the other room.
If Mia is our new hireandshe’s not surprised to see me, then she knew who I was the whole time. It was intentional. I was part of some game. She tricked me.
But why? To fuck with my mind?
No. I’m jumping to conclusions. I’m sure she’s not the new person. There’s got to be another explanation. A reasonable one.
There’s no way my one-night stand from this weekend got my fucking job.
No. Damn. Way.
Big Al answers all my questions with one simple sentence. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our new intel and data specialist, Miriam Owens.”
No, no, no.
Doom! Doom!
Frank Sinatra’s voice echoes in my psyche, singing,on a scale of one to ten, my friend, you’re fucked.
Vaguely, as if off in the distance, a clattering sound makes me flinch after my laptop slips from my hand and falls to the floor.
“Fuck me.”
I barely register the shocked gasps echoing around the room.
That epic night we spent together was part of some game. I was a pawn. It meant nothing to her.
Why the hell would anyone do that? What kind of sociopath did Big Al hire?
