Page 48 of The Refusal

I raise my eyebrows at her. I rarely bring women here to the apartment: I have never had a girl ask me about computer games.

She purses her lips and scans my body, and then that half smile appears again as she starts to walk around me. I like this playful version of Jo: I prefer her to the calm business Jo that I see more often. Is she more naturally the first than the second? Why is she walking around me? But she pushes me away from the bench so she can go all the way around, looking me up and down. The touch of that push travels right down to my toes, and, as she circles, the penny drops.

“Well, you say you’re a guy, but you don’t look like a typical macho male …” she says, trailing off.

She’s questioning my masculinity?

I hardly let her get the words out of her mouth before my hand snakes out and delves into her stomach to tickle her. She lets out a loud shriek that makes my ear ache before racing into the open-plan area of the living room. But I stand there completely dumbstruck, my fingers are still tingling from where they connected to what appeared to be rock-solid abs. She works out? That was so hot I have to close my eyes for a couple of seconds, take in a few tenuous breaths. Fortunately, she’s not looking at me as my words crank out like a rusty engine that’s stuck on old tracks.

“Were you trying to suggest that I’m somehow not as manly as …?” I say, clearing my throat as I turn toward her, but she’s grinning at me, shaking her head and waggling a controller.

I frown at her. “Prepare to have your ass kicked, lady.”

She gives me a wide-open smile. “Oh, I’m no lady. You’re about to find that out.”

30

Janus

The wind is whistling in the background alongside labored breathing. I take the handset from my head and stare at the number on it before placing it back against my ear.

“Hello?” The word comes whipping through the turmoil at me.

“Jo?”

“Yes? Janus!” The words come out on a gasp accompanied by a long noise that sounds like someone opening a packet of chips. “God. Hi. Sorry …”

The noise abates for a second, then starts again, and I hold the phone away. When I put it back to my head, all I catch is a heaving breath.

“… Let me move …”

“No worries,” I say.

She doesn’t reply when I say this, just another sound like ants crawling over a microphone before her breathless voice returns to the line.

“Where are you?” She might be out of town. Crap.

“Running along the Hudson. Why?”

She’s a runner? If I’d known that, we could have run together. I could have found endlessly creative ways to spend time with Jo Williams. The thought of that tiny body in tight Lycra … I snap my thoughts off right there, gripping my phone so hard my hand starts to ache.

“We’ve got another problem.”

“What?” Her voice is a sharp crack over the wind. Then the buffeting noise abruptly disappears, like she’s gone into a building.

“Somebody has hacked into the Hong Kong server.”

This gets me a raspy inhale. “Oh, God, Janus. Damn.” She’s quiet for a beat. “Ugh. They’ve been looking for weak points, and they’ve found one. That means we’re being specifically targeted. Damn, damn, and double damn. I half-expected this given that they’d already had another try …” She trails off.

“Yeah,” I say, grinning at her damning. In the silence that follows I can almost hear her brain ticking, see her hand making flow diagrams on paper.

“Can we find some more resource …?” I start.

“We’re going to need to go out there, aren’t we?” she says over me.

The tension in my neck eases. She said “we.”

“Yeah.”

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