Page 92 of The San Marco Heist

“As single as someone can be.”

“Good.” Me, too, except for the suddenly alive fiancé.Stop thinking about him, Scar.You’re naked and wrapped around another man. Noah’s your past.

“I, ah…” He shifted, so the arm I was lying on ran down my hip. His words came out quiet and hesitant. “My father moved us around a lot when I was younger, and I had a hard time making friends.”

“Hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “It took me a while and several boarding schools, but I eventually figured out that people expect specific behaviors from you. After you reach a certain age, everyone wants the new kids to be the same as them. Adapting was the best way to make friends.”

“Like flirting with the architect?”

“I may be a private investigator and spend a lot of time sitting in cars, watching people for the information I need, but I’ve…” His heart rate sped up underneath me. “I’ve used that skill when it’s needed.”

So long as he didn’t tell me that’s all this was, it didn’t matter. It meant he was like me.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you about the bruises when I showed up on your doorstep. Your friend’s reaction indicated flirting with you was my best bet, and that wouldn’t have meshed with sympathy for the bruises.”

I fought against rolling my eyes at the memory. Heather had just finished pointing out that Noah wasn’t as perfect as I’d convinced myself he’d been. Was there any way I could tell them the truth about him without revealing the extralegal portion of my job?

“When flirting didn’t get me the results I wanted, I figured you’d use whatever excuse you could to leave me behind, so I kept it quiet.”

“I like hearing about the real you, Malcolm.”

He pulled me tight against himself, and his heart continued skipping. “Sometimes, it’s hard to remember who that is.”

“I know the feeling.” That was why, no matter how busy life got, I held on to my girlfriends. I covered up the true reason for most of my trips abroad, but there was more than enough legitimate work for them to hear snippets of my boring tech security or data recovery jobs. It was also why I clung to the core of the Reynolds team—most of them had been my friends or family since I was young. Sincewestopped moving.

“Your mother trained you, didn’t she?”

My childhood had been more like a ridiculous story from a movie than a real childhood. She didn’t launch Reynolds Recoveries—at least not officially—until I graduated from university, but she’d had me help her on jobs long before that. We’d always done good work. It took its toll on our relationship, but that was my job as the oldest—bear the brunt of everything and protect Emmett and Brie.

“She’s a thief? Or…”

My mother had never told me the entire truth. All I knew was that she had contacts around the world, knew how to do things normal mothers didn’t, and that she refused to talk about what she did before I came around. “My dad was the thief. Is? I don’t know what the right word is there.”

“What does that mean?”

“He’s in prison. Has been since I was twelve.”

Malcolm shifted underneath me, and I craned my neck up at him. “Twelve? Your father’s a lifer?”

“Twenty-five years. Espionage.” It was a matter of public record, so there was no point in hiding it. All my friends knew the basics. Most of our clients may have even known. In some circles, it gave us credence.

“And here I thought it was like mother, like daughter.” He eased back down and pulled me tighter.

He was right.

The unspoken truth Emmett, Brie, and I had agreed long ago to never dig into was that we all suspected Dad had taken the fall for Mum. Why else would she have given me a lock-picking set for Christmas when I was twelve? One I’d shared with Declan, my buddy who loved puzzles and breaking down things to figure out how they worked? How else could she have gotten my friend Zac out of his first ten speeding tickets? Or found Rav when he’d gone off the grid. “Oh, there’s a lot of that, too.”

Malcolm rolled and pulled me on top of him, pushing my hair back from my face. “Funny how our parents were so different, and yet we ended up the same.”

“Scarred?”

“Searching for connection, while still being scared to death of it?”

Right again. I had lots of connections, but only the ones I’d had since before I knew better. I leaned forward and our lips met, tongues swirling slowly around each other. Even if this was only short-lived, it was a new connection.

The alarm on my phone went off and I startled. “Damn.”

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