Page 17 of Operation Heartbeat

But boarding a jet bound for a foreign country while posing as somebody’swifewas not a thing shewantedto adapt to.

She wrapped her arms around herself and let her head fall back against the airplane seat. Seats flanked a wide aisle in pairs. She’d taken a window seat, expecting Con to sit anywhere but beside her.

She was wrong.

The big man crowded the space with his long legs stretched out so his boots disappeared under the seat in front of them. And did his muscled forearm need every inch of the armrest?

She sighed. This was going to be a long flight. Sleeping was probably off the table too. One thing Sophie needed for good rest was her routine, and she wasn’t getting that here.

Con shifted in the seat. His elbow bumped hers.

She whipped her head to glare at him. “Do you need the entire armrest?”

He looked down at his thick forearm that took up the whole thing. He twitched it minutely, presenting her with a sliver of tan vinyl. “Is that better?”

“Sure, if my arm were the size of a noodle, but it isn’t!” She held up her arm, turning it side to side so he got a good look at the limb.

“I’m big. I take up more room.”

“Does that mean you deserve more room? No,” she answered her own question. “It does not.”

“What would you suggest, Sophie?”

She shoved a sigh through her nostrils. “You can sit somewhere else. Or let me find a different seat.”

“We need to talk.”

She stared at him. “Now? About what?”

“About how we’re going to pull off this act.”

He didn’t need to elaborate on what act he referred to. The wedding ring was a hot brand on her skin every second she’d been wearing it.

She dropped her face into her hands and then raked her fingers through her hair in an attempt to gather her emotions. “Look, this is all moving too fast.”

“We don’t have time to wait. You need to be decoding that cryptogram. In fact, as soon as the plane hits cruising altitude, I’ll give you a computer to get to work.”

She gave a little shake of her head to clear out the emotional clutter. “I take it I don’t need to worry about security leaks over an insecure network?”

“No. We’re the government.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I know you hold a doctorate in computer science and a doctorate in mathematics. We understand that you know what you’re doing, and we’re going to accommodate you.”

“I appreciate being able to do my job without worrying about some hackers tapping into what I’m doing. That still doesn’t give me an armrest of my own.”

He stared at her for a heartbeat that stretched on and on.

Maybe she’d gone too far. In the name of self-preservation, she sometimes ended up being too blunt. A lot of guys didn’tappreciate that behavior from a woman, but she wasn’t just any woman.

Still, she tried to smooth things over. “I realize this is important.”

“I don’t doubt that. I don’t claim to know what you do—so don’t try to guess what I do. I’m in the trenches, Sophie. I’ve seen things.Donethings.” Those deep eyes shuttered, closing her out of whatever he was thinking. Or feeling.

“Right now, you are seeing things through one lens. The one you know.”

She tipped her head, studying his face to gauge how far she could push her boundaries before Con would snap. She knew from the boys’ club that was academia that arguments with know-it-all males created hard feelings. That, in turn, made for tough working conditions.

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