“No, but now that I think about it, maybe I should.”
A cheery blonde waitress with a Polish accent led them to a table right at the back of the room, where the space widened out to three times the size of the frontage. Their table had a bright blue cloth, yellow flowers and, thankfully, no sticky residue anywhere.
“How about we do one of everything?” Harvard asked her as the waitress offered them the laminated menus.
If it meant she didn’t have to touch those, she’d agree to anything. “That’s fine with me. And wine. Dear Gucci, I need wine. A bottle. Sealed.” She didn’t trust anything that came in a glass. Who knows what they were serving and calling a decent vintage. Actually…
She glanced at the drinks menu, which sat propped up against the flowers. It was worse than she thought. The wine only came in red or white.
“Forget the wine,” she said. “I’ll take a bottle of beer. Something light. And please open it at the table.” To her credit, the waitress didn’t so much as blink an eye at Rachel’s instructions.
After the waitress disappeared, Rachel watched Harvard shrug out of his jacket and hang it over the back of the chair beside him. With a sigh, Rachel placed her handbag on the seat next to her and did the same with her jacket.
“Just once,” she said, “could we eat somewhere that’s regularly inspected by the health department?”
He threw back his head, laughing deep and long. Rachel glanced at some of the nearby diners, who were smiling at him. Noticing one or two of the women had speculation in their eyes, she glared at them. It had nothing to do with her pretending to be his fiancée; it was just plain rude to size up another woman’s dinner date.
Of course, Harvard caught her actions. “Getting a bit possessive?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I be possessive? Because we had sex?” She made a little scoffing sound. “I don’t know you well enough to want to keep you.”
“You could. Know me, that is.” He spread his arms wide, making his shirt tighten at his shoulders. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything. I dare you.”
She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “I’d have to be interested to ask.”
He leaned forward and clasped his hands on the table, his eyes pinning hers. “Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
He was bloody well amused again. “Fine. Tell me about being a spy—if that’s what you really did. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone. And make me believe it.”
“You think I’d lie to you.” His eyebrows shot up.
Rachel let out an exasperated breath. “Actually, I don’t think you’d lie to me. I’m fairly certain you’d just skirt any topic you didn’t want to discuss.”
Her answer seemed to please him. “For your information, I was definitely a spy. Not a desk-jockey analyst. Although I started out doing quite a bit of that.” His smile was self-deprecating. “It came with my area of expertise—data mining, pattern analysis, statistics, that sort of thing. But I also have other skills.” He winked at her, and she felt heat travel through her body.
Damn cocky man.
“What other skills?”
“Languages, the ability to make friends and win confidences, staying calm when other people are stressed, and hand-to-hand combat training.” He shrugged as though it was all nothing. “I was kinda born to be a spy.”
Against her better judgment, Rachel found herself intrigued. “Did you enjoy it?”
“Sure, there were parts I enjoyed. Mainly I got a kick out of the challenge. The puzzle, the game, the adrenaline rush of trying not to get caught.”
She folded her arms and rested them on the table. “Were you ever caught?”
Dark, somber eyes met hers. “Yeah.”
Rachel knew other women would back off at his tone. They’d demur and tell him he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to. She wasn’t other women. The man knew practically everything there was to know about her life. As far as she was concerned, that meant share and share alike.
“What happened?” she asked, wondering if he’d tell her. Wondering what it meant if he did.
“I spent three days being interrogated by Al-Qaeda extremists in northern Africa.”
He seemed perfectly relaxed, calm, no tension at all. But somehow, Rachel knew he didn’t mean a few questions in a back-country jail.
“Did they hurt you?” She couldn’t bring herself to say torture, but that’s precisely what she meant.
“Yeah.” His smile was rueful. “And now you know something that no one outside of the US government knows about me.”
Rachel pretended she didn’t notice that her arms had unfolded and her hand had sneaked across the table to cover his. “And I bet you were far too stubborn to tell them what they wanted to know so they’d let you go. Honestly, that stubborn streak of yours is a danger to you and everyone around you. I should know.”
The corners of his mouth quirked as his hand turned over to clasp hers and, again, she pretended it wasn’t happening. Because Rachel Ford-Talbot did not hold hands in public. Especially with a fake fiancé.
“Next time, I’ll seriously consider just giving in and spilling the goods,” he said. “Although Al-Qaeda isn’t known for setting prisoners free if they cooperate. Just sayin’.”
“Well, how would you know if you didn’t even try?” Her hand flexed in his, squeezing tightly for a second. “We’ll never know the answer to that anyway, will we? Because you aren’t a spy anymore?” Had that last part come out as a question? No. It was just her mind playing tricks. She didn’t care if he still worked for the US government.
“No.” His voice softened as though reassuring her, which was just silly. “No, I’m retired from all that.”
Rachel knew she should leave it there. Harvard’s business was none of hers, but she couldn’t help asking, “Why did you retire? Do spies age out of the CIA?”
“I got fed up being alone,” he said, staring into her eyes. “It’s hard to have a family when you’re traveling the world, putting yourself in danger, and being forced to lie about it. Some try, but I wasn’t one of them. I want honesty in my relationship. And I want to be home with the woman I love.”
The room around them disappeared as Rachel fell into his gaze. Her heart raced; her mouth went dry. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to run or surrender. And she wasn’t sure why she felt she needed to do either.
“This is so romantic,” a female voice gushed, snapping Rachel’s attention back to their waitress.
She pulled her hand from Harvard’s and folded her arms as she sat back in her seat. What on earth was she doing, pretending there was a relationship between them when they were purely colleagues who’d had a physical slipup? The man was infuriating, and she couldn’t help but think he was using some tricks he’d picked up in the CIA to lull her closer to him.
Well, she was onto him. And it was stopping now.
“Sorry to interrupt,” the waitress lied as she clearly showed no remorse. “I have your order.”