Page 34 of The Blonde Identity

Then he kissed her. Because covers. And lessons. And, really, they’d almost kissed once already. This wasn’t that much different than the street. Except in all the ways it was. Because, this time, she tasted like chocolate and she smelled like raspberries, and she was a soft, pleasant weight against his chest. And that dress was serving her breasts up like they were his actual dessert, so he stopped fighting and let himself taste her, feel her, breathe her in until her fingernails scraped against his scalp and she gave a sharp little intake of breath. His lips parted and her tongue peeked out and...

“Well, someone’s having a real honeymoon,” Marc muttered, and Sawyer jerked away. But Zoe was still blinking up at him, and he couldn’t tell if she was mad or disappointed. The band began to play and people were starting to dance, but Zoe just sat there, staring.

“What?” he asked, but she was quiet for the first time since he’d known her. Her fingers brushed against her lips and there was a dazed look in her eyes. “Your head okay?”

“Who... who are you?” The other couples had all taken to the dance floor and the brothers had dozed off on the other side of the table, so Sawyer and Zoe were more or less alone when she said, “Where did you grow up? How long have you known Alex? When did you become”—she cast her eyes around in a textbook example of whatnotto do—“a spy? Why did you become a spy? How—”

“Let’s dance.” Sawyer pulled her to her feet and she tucked into him without missing a beat. He could practically feel her smug smile against his shoulder—like this had been her evil plan all along.

But then she gazed up at him, eyes hazy in the dim room. “Is Sawyer your real name?”

Sawyer didn’t want to think about the answer. She was the one with amnesia, but he’d spent his whole life being other people. Armsdealers and mercenaries, smugglers and thieves. He’d spent five long years working his way into Kozlov’s inner circle—a place where even the good guys have to be bad. Zoe was pink drinks and funny stories and what the world feels like after a rain. He was nothing but a long list of names and backstories, legends and lies.

He was no longer sure where the covers stopped and the man began, so he just told her, “It’s one of them.”

She made a sound that was twenty percent anger and sixty percent frustration and one hundred percent Zoe. So he dipped her.

“Five years...” he said to her upside-down face. “I met Alex five years ago.” He pulled her slowly upright, felt her nestle back into his arms. “And at the time I thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”

“Oh.” Her voice was rough. “But she’s not anymore?”

He brushed a piece of hair out of her face and told himself to stop talking, stop sharing, stop breaking protocol and taking chances, but it felt like the most obvious thing in the world to say, “Now she’s second.”

Then Zoe blushed and pressed her forehead against his chest.

When the band changed to something slower, he should have told her the night was over. They had eaten. They had danced. No one would ask questions if the newlyweds slipped away. But for some reason he pulled her closer because, well, a spy learns to trust his gut.

When she put her head on his shoulder, he whispered, “Just so you know, the more lies you tell, the more you’ll have to remember.”

But she sighed into him, chest rising and falling in time with the music and his own breath. “I won’t forget. Right now, my fake life is the only one I have.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Him

Thirty minutes, three dances, and one more tiny pink drink later, Zoe was holding on to Sawyer’s arm and waving goodbye to her best friends in the world.

“I’m gonna text you and get that recipe, Anthony!” (It turns out, Mrs. Michaelson liked to cook.) “Gute nacht, Petra!” (She also spoke German.) “Ciao, Lorenzo!” (And a little bit of Italian.) “Ooh, the boat is moving.” She stopped and planted her feet wide as if to feel the sway. (There was no sway.)

“Boats tend to do that. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

He would have picked her up and carried her if he hadn’t thought her fan club would burst into applause at his “manly vigor.” Because, seriously, at some point she had actually used the wordsmanly vigorin conversation. It was enough to make him miss the cave again.

But as they reached the elevator the ship really did sway, and so did Zoe, right into Sawyer’s arms, which wasn’t nearly as romantic as it sounded.

“Now this is just a theory,” she said clumsily, “but I’m starting to wonder if maybe I’m not much of a drinker?” It was a valid question, he thought, right up until she belched. Loudly. After, it was a certainty.

“Yeah. That’s my theory too,” he said as she stood on one foot, leaning against him as she took off her shoes.

“You’re a grouchy bear.” She was listing a little to the right.

“You have a head injury.” He was mad at himself for letting her have even one tiny pink drink, even if he had told the waiter to water them down.

“I know,” she whined. “And it’s soooooooo annoying.”

“So your judgment is off. Obviously. I am not grouch—”

“And you keep getting grouchier. And grouchier.”

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