Page 18 of Operation Heartbeat

She stole a look at Con’s hand. Seeing the gold band on his left ring finger unnerved her. Seeing the matching one on her own finger left her feeling like a trapped bird, even if it was just pretend.

“We don’t have time for this now.” She twisted forward in an attempt to ignore him.

“Yes. We do.”

“We’re going to Turkey. How many hours is that?” She looked around. “Does the government give you a supersonic jet, because if not, we’re stuck together for about nine more hours.”

His brows drew into a V over his eyes. “How do you know this? Do you study flight times for every destination in the world?”

“No. But I read. A lot.” She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then opened them again, a fraction calmer. “If you want me to pretend we’re newlyweds, you’re going to have to give mesomething to work with. I have to look like I like you. Right now, I don’t like you.”

She darted a glance at his ring and created a fist around her own.

The main reason for her dislike was Con’s natural bossiness, which probably came from being in the military.

The other issue…was all on her. She was so against marriage, she didn’t even want to be involved in a fake one, and that was making her act bitchier than she typically was.

“What’s not to like?”

She blinked rapidly at his question. “That right there. The cockiness. The way you deflect my questions and act like I don’t know anything because I only ‘see it through my own lens.’ Heads-up—if you want me to know something, you need to tell me. For instance, say…the cryptogram possibly pointing to a potential bombing.”

“I have a level of clearances you do not, Sophie. I cannot share everything I know with you.”

“Aren’t we going to locate this man so I can find out more about him and decode the cryptogram faster?”

“That’s one hundred percent correct—for your part of the op. The orders I received are to bring him in no matter what it takes.”

She swallowed hard, realizing how shrill her voice had become. She shook her head. “You read my file. I’d like to read yours too.”

His brow flicked up with a devil-may-care attitude that made her stomach do a nosedive. “It’s classified.”

“Are you telling me that I don’t have the right security clearances as your pretend wife? Hand it over.”

His mouth twisted—he knew she was using the link she had bucked so hard to her own ends.

“What do you think you’re going to see?” he asked.

“Oh, how about the fact that you operate almost entirely off memorization?”

The narrowing of his eyes was almost undetectable, but she caught it. She would bet her whole book collection—besides the signed copies, of course—that Con’s mind worked like an advanced computer.

“I’ve been teaching for a long time. I know how to figure out the way people learn. I’d say that you can memorize a detail or fact just by seeing or hearing it.”

He didn’t respond.

“I think you masked some learning problems when you were in school.”

He shoved to his feet and strode toward the back of the plane.

She leaped up and followed. When he plopped heavily into a seat, she dropped into the one beside him.

“Haven’t you said enough?” His low voice sounded calm but had an edge as sharp as a blade.

“You didn’t let me finish.”

They stared at each other. They seemed to do that a lot.

“You must have a very high IQ to even be in special ops. I’d say if I’m right, your way of adapting by memorization has served you well, Con.”

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