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Then I immediately text Jude and Griffin with a shared calendar invite for the end of this week called ELEANOR: WE’RE ON, BABY.

I laugh as Jude immediately accepts.

Griffin sends me a private text.

GRIFFIN: I don’t even want to know.

SASHA: Aw, you miss me already?

Three dots pop up, then disappear. He’s just going to leave me on read?

Then the text pops up.

GRIFFIN: It’s unhealthy how much I can’t stop thinking about you.

My stomach flips. It’s a good thing he’s away for a few days and that I’ll only be working part time. Otherwise I think I’d be willing to throw all my steps out the window just to exist carnally with this man.

But he’s not, and I’ve still got step two to attend to. I pull onto the road, humming a song and laughing to myself like I’ve lost my mind thanks to the best sex of my life.

Maybe I have. But I’m good with it.

CHAPTER28

Griffin

“You’ve lost your damned mind, you know that?” Ford’s pacing the room, one arm folded, the other rubbing his jaw.

“I’m well aware.” I set down the tablet I’ve been reading the last transcripts of Creelman’s conversations on, yawning. They’re the last transcripts we’re ever going to get, seeing as Lionel is really going through with his plan to relocate us, which means our contact in law enforcement won’t have any reasonable rationale for why they’re still sending them to us. They’re already risking their job for us; we can’t have them risk getting arrested, too.

“I’ve never once seen you in anything remotely resembling a normal, committed relationship, and now you’re wearing a ring.”

“It’s not—”

“It’s not real. You said that. Still, we’ve looked after several vulnerable women before and you never once offered to marry any of them.”

I run a hand over my head, glancing down at my phone.

He’s right. It makes no sense at all. But here I am, after only one night away from her and I’m asking her to send me photos of what she made for dinner last night.

“Why the hell do you have pictures of a hot dog on your phone, Griff? Some kind of sex thing?”

I clap my phone face down on the table. “You’ve got fucking spy’s eyes, you know that?”

It’s a long-standing joke with us—Ford’s got the sharpest eyes I’ve ever seen. And a photographic memory. It makes him irritatingly impossible to bullshit.

“Seriously, why is she sending you hot dogs?”

“Forget about it.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Right,” he says. “Sounds pretty not fucking real.”

I shove my phone into my pocket, tapping my fingers on the table. Ford’s in a fucking mood, and it’s not about Sasha and me.

“If you don’t want to put the surveillance on Macklin, I told you to just show me how and I won’t bother you again.”

My best friend leans back in his chair, massaging his temples.

“What?”