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“The FBI pays about what you’d expect,” he said. “But my parents have done well. Granted, my family is nothing like yours, financially,” he added with an eye roll. “But having the background that I do means I’m not in it for the paycheck.”
“You do it because you love it,” she said.
“I’m good at it,” he replied. “I got recruited while I was at Brown and I knew that it was right for me. I like to think I’m making a difference.”
Bianca watched him, hoping he’d continue and tell her more about himself, but he changed the subject.
“Should I have called first?” he asked. “I just showed up—”
“No, that’s fine,” she said, shaking it off and coming forward to give him a kiss.
He smiled and put his arms around her. “You’re still not yourself,” he noticed. “Is it because of this?” he asked, motioning to the invitation in her hand.
“Ah, sort of? It made me realize that I have no way to contact you, and that bothered me,” she admitted. She held up the invitation. “I wanted to call you to ask if you did balls.”
He laughed. “Do I do balls? Like, the Cinderella type?”
“More like the fundraising type for Children’s Hospital.”
He looked down, his expression pensive, and she suddenly regretted asking him.
“It’s stupid. And you’re undercover, right? Not very lowkey to be going to a ball with press and all that, I guess,” she said breezily, trying to walk back her invitation. She pulled out of his arms and went into the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?”
She switched into hostess mode in an attempt to make things less personal, which was how she supposed he wanted things to be between them.
“Bianca?” He followed her into the kitchen and stopped her from reaching up to take down glasses. “I’d love to go with you. There’d have to be some rules, though,” he said, like he was asking if that was okay with her.
She nodded, hopeful. “What kind of rules?”
“Well, you can’t tell anyone where I work, obviously. And we’ll have to come up with a story about how we met,” he said.
“But I wanteveryoneto know you pulled me over and now I have a record,” she said, joking.
He smiled, appreciating that she was trying to keep it light, but he still looked serious. “Also, if we’re going to be going out publicly, you have to make sure your brothers are on board.”
“They’ll do it if I ask them to,” she said more confidently than she felt. Rafe did say that he would back her, but Cassiel might be a problem. “Honestly, all I have to do is get them to say you do nothing. Lots of people at those fundraisers don’t have real jobs.”
“How about you say I work for the State Department?” he suggested. “I don’t know if I like the idea of doing nothing.”
She threw her arms around him. “All the best people do nothing,” she said, grinning. “I do nothing.”
“I thought you worked at the animal shelter?”
“Not yet. Turns out I’m underqualified,” she admitted, shrugging. “But I’m going to take classes.”
She was expecting him to laugh at that, but instead, Elias was impressed. “Good for you,” he said.
She rolled her eyes, mostly at herself for blushing. “I’m not saving the world or anything. But I do like it.”
He stayed watching her and thinking for a moment. “Give me your phone,” he finally said.
“Why?” Bianca asked, handing it over.
He started entering a number into her phone. “So you can call me,” he replied, handing it back to her.
She looked up at him mischievously. “Is this your super-secret spy line?”
He grabbed her, laughing, and squeezed her. “Funny girl,” he whispered. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, he sounded a little sad.
