Off the Grid by Monica McCarty

Author:Monica McCarty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-02T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Kate tried to get a little sleep when she returned home to Arlington from the airport after the red-eye. She tossed and turned for an hour before giving up. A shower, an omelet, and a triple-shot latte made her feel almost human again.

She decided to work from home for the day rather than go into the office. Percy, who had been living with her since their engagement, had been tied up with a morning meeting and had sent a driver to the airport to pick her up, but he’d checked in on her later that morning with a phone call.

“You’re sure you are okay?” he asked after she filled him in on what had happened in San Diego.

Or, rather, most of what had happened. She left out Colt’s last cruel dig, which had felt something like a jagged knife opening an old wound. An old wound that for a moment had been very raw and very painful.

How could she have let him get to her like that? She couldn’t put her shield down even for a moment when it came to him. But she’d been lulled into a false sense of complacency. They’d been getting along so well, she’d actually thought that maybe she didn’t hate him as much as she thought. That maybe they could work together like two rational adults. Which was idiotic, as there had never been anything rational about the two of them.

She’d made a mistake in a moment of weakness, which she attributed to the accident. Seeing that child nearly run over and then holding the baby until her parents arrived had stripped her to her core and left her unusually vulnerable.

“I’m fine,” she assured her fiancé. “Just tired. You know how I don’t sleep well on planes.”

If Percy didn’t quite believe her explanation, he was too polite to disagree with her. Sometimes his very proper Englishness could come off as coldness or aloofness, but right now she was grateful for it.

“Don’t forget about the party tonight. The car will be there at five to pick you up.”

“You aren’t coming home to change?”

“I brought my tux with me.”

“I’ll be ready.” She wasn’t looking forward to a formal party tonight, but she knew it was part of her duties as the soon-to-be Mrs. Ambassador.

They’d met while she was briefing him on a joint US/UK operation. There had been some pushback from both sides about security issues when they’d started dating, but because she was a counterterrorism analyst and not a field agent (aka a spook), they had only been asked to give an occasional report on their dates.

Marriage was more problematic. A CIA agent marrying a foreign national—even from our closest ally country—was frowned upon, which is why she hadn’t formally told her superiors yet. They could try to revoke her security clearances, although she thought it unlikely since she didn’t do clandestine work. Percy intended to retire from the diplomatic service when his posting was up. She knew he wanted to return to England, but they hadn’t really talked about that.

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