Page 52 of Exposed

That doesn’t faze her. “I’m sorry, King. If I’m going to walk back into the place I was chased off from, the part I play in this needs to make sense. I need to feel it, not just act it.”

I look down at the woman who’s sitting in the middle of her sofa with her legs crossed. She’s wearing the same baggy T-shirtand tiny shorts that I know are there, but can’t see at the moment. She’s barefoot, isn’t wearing makeup, and her hair is a mess.

She’s a fucking beauty.

“Were you a thespian in high school?”

She frowns. “And show choir. How did you know?”

I shake my head and mutter, “Just a guess.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. My acting skills aren’t great. I’m from a tiny town at the foot of Shenandoah National Park. Imagine backwoods, then make it worse than that. No one was cut from anything. If you tried out, you got a part. I also played basketball, and if you saw me play, you’d get that my high school extracurricular activities had nothing to do with skill and everything to do with them needing bodies to fill a roster or playbill.”

I’m pushing thoughts out of my head of Goldie playing basketball and choke down the last of the seltzer I helped myself to from her fridge. I didn’t think anything could be worse than a veggie frozen pizza, but this shit tastes like hand sanitizer. If I’m going to be here playing the fake fiancé, I’m going to need to fill her fridge with real food and some beer. Maybe a bottle of whiskey.

And she needs a decent bottle of wine if we’re going to get through this together.

I crumple the skinny can and toss it on the platter with the remnants of the frozen pizza. I don’t eat green peppers, and she doesn’t eat crust.

I put a hand to my chest and do my best to keep the bite out of my tone. “Goldie, I’m begging you, work with me here. I’m just a man asking a woman what it will take for you to fall in love with a money launderer who works with the cartel. Because that shit is non-negotiable. You’re going to have to find a way if we want this to work.”

She mulls that over as she nibbles on her damn bottom lip. “How old are you?”

I cross my arms. “Older than you.”

She unfolds her legs and shifts positions so she can lean on her knee. “You know how old I am?”

“I’m the government. I know everything there is to know that they know, right down to your social security number.”

She rolls her eyes. “There’s a power imbalance here that I don’t like. We’re making this up, but it would be nice to know something aboutyou. The you that I’m supposed to trust.”

“I’m forty-three. What else do you want to know?”

“Huh.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “What? Do I look older?”

She tips her head to the side and studies me. Hell, she doesn’t even pretend she’s not checking me out. “I don’t know if it’s so much about age. It’s more like you’ve lived more than most humans, if that makes sense. Like you’ve done more, experienced more—and if I had to guess, it’s not all good.”

Note to self, Marigold is astute. “Oh, I promise I’ve lived more than almost every human.”

She leans forward. “That’s the part of you I’m curious about.”

I shake my head. “That part of me has nothing to do with this job.”

“You’re wrong,” she pushes and leans forward an inch. “You’re a sum of your parts. We all are.”

“Not for this, I’m not.” This is getting deep. Too deep for some undercover work with a fake fiancée. “I’m not dropping to my knees and proposing. Feel free to make up any shit you want to about me to act like you’re in love. Do whatever it takes, but make it believable.”

She unfolds her legs to stand and shifts around the coffee table. Most of the time I’m around her, she’s been in heels. On bare feet, she’s smaller. Her forehead barely hits my shoulders when she tips her face to look up at me. “Daniel Armstrong … we met three years ago in D.C. You were there for meetings with a prospective client. I was managing an event in the city when I was trying to get my business up and running. It was pouring—a real gully washer. It was one of those early summer rain fests that Virginia is known for. But it’s that rain that makes it so green, so no one really complains, right?”

I stare down into her deep brown eyes as she sets the stage for our relationship. “If you say so.”

“I do. Anyway, my event was wrapped up and I was trying to make it back to my car, which was at least a half a mile away. You know parking is horrible there.”

“Horrible,” I agree.

She continues. “I forgot my umbrella and had to duck into a small restaurant in Georgetown to wait out the downpour. You were alone at the bar. You were meeting your client, but you were early. You are notorious for being early.”

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