Chapter 6: Oversight
The fame crested and broke like a wave, and Eric watched it from the shore of their sofa.
For two weeks, Sophia was everywhere. She appeared on a morning show, where she deflected every question about the fight with a rehearsed humility so smooth it looked like nature. She was interviewed by a print journalist who wrote a long profile comparing her to a cross between a Bond girl and a community librarian. She turned down a reality show, politely, and the refusal itself became a headline: MUSEUM MAESTRO SAYS NO TO HOLLYWOOD.
Eric drove her to a handful of these appearances, his suspension stretching out before him like an unpaid holiday. He sat in the back of the television studio, in a plastic chair that stuck to his thighs, and watched her charm anchorman after anchorman. The trick was always the same. She would begin with humility, acknowledge the chaos, then pivot, always, to the Calthorpe Gallery.
"You know, they're hosting a travelling exhibition of Baroque sculpture next month," she'd say, her voice bright. "The permanent collection is really quite underrated."
And the interview would drift, gently, from the robbery to the museum. Eric marvelled at it. She had turned a moment of violence into a PR campaign for an institution that had almost been robbed, and somewhere in the middle of it, the story stopped being about her. The commentators stopped asking about her combat training. The public lost interest.
By the end of the third week, a kitten had been rescued from a drainpipe in Leeds, and Sophia Rossi was last week's news.
The morning the kitten story broke, Eric found her in the kitchen, scrolling through her phone with a satisfied smile.
"Extinct," she said, holding up the screen. A fluffy orange paw reached out of a drainpipe toward a firefighter. "I'm a fossil."
"Congratulations," Eric said, setting two mugs of coffee on the counter. "You've been replaced by a cat."
"The only thing that could possibly dethrone me." She set the phone down and accepted the mug. "It was fun while it lasted. But I'm ready to go back to watching men try to parallel park from the gallery window."
He kissed her forehead and tried to believe that was true.
Three days later, the doorbell rang.
Sophia was in the shower. Eric was at the kitchen table, a stack of unread trade journals fanned out in front of him, pretending to catch up on the world he'd been exiled from. The doorbell was not an aggressive sound. It was a polite, two-tone chime that somehow managed to carry a note of officialdom.
He opened the door.
Two people stood on the landing. The first was a small, wiry man with quick eyes that took in everything at once: the doorframe, the rug, the state of Eric's hair, the fact that he was wearing pyjama bottoms at eleven in the morning. The second was a wall of a man, built like a door, wide and solid, with a grey crew cut and sunglasses that reflected Eric's startled face back at him.
"Eric Jones?" the small man said.
"Who's asking?"
"My name is Doyle. This is Agent Walker. We're with oversight." He showed a badge, quick and professional, not long enough to actually read. "We'd like to have a word with you and Ms. Rossi."
Oversight. Not the Agency Eric worked for. The other one. The one Carl Aldrich had spent his entire career trying to stop people from noticing.
Eric's mouth went dry. "She's in the shower."
"We can wait," Walker said. His voice was a low rumble.
They stood in the doorway, not moving, not asking to be invited in. Two stone lions on a doormat that said WELCOME TO THE CHAOS.
Eric stepped aside. "Come in, then. I'll, uh, I'll get her."
He left them in the living room and went down the hall to the bathroom, his heart hammering. He knocked. "Sophia?"
The water stopped. "Yes, darling?"
"There are two men from the Agency here. Agency oversight. The one with the badges and the, the guns, probably."
A pause. Then: "Well, let them dry off, I'll be out in a minute."
"Sophia, this is serious."
"I'm always serious." Her voice came through the door, muffled but bright. "No wait, tell them about the biscuits. The ones I made yesterday. Offer them biscuits."
"We don't have biscuits."
"In the tin on top of the fridge."
Eric turned and looked at the tin. A blue-and-white tin with a picture of a cottage on it, the kind that contained sewing supplies in most households. He hadn't noticed Sophia buying biscuits, let alone making them.
He opened the tin. Inside were cookies. Actually baked, golden-brown, studded with chocolate chips.
"There are cookies up here," he said, marveling.
"Then we're saved," she said. The shower restarted.
Eric returned to the living room with the tin. Doyle and Walker were standing exactly where he'd left them, not sitting, not touching anything, two statues with the same posture of professional wariness. He set the tin on the coffee table and opened it.
"Sophia made these," he said. "Help yourself."
Walker's sunglasses tilted down, toward the tin. There was a long silence. Then he reached out, took a cookie, and bit into it. Eric watched his jaw move. A crumb clung to his grey moustache.
"Good cookie," Walker said.
"Oh, superb," Doyle agreed, taking one. "Where did she train?"
"The biscuits?"
"With Krav Maga," Doyle said, through a mouthful of cookie. "We've pulled the tape. She moves like someone who's done this for years, not someone who's been to a gym twice a week."
Eric's hands were sweating. "She did martial arts, at university. She told the police."
"We found her university records," Walker said. "There's no mention of martial arts in the first two years."
That was when Sophia chose to make her entrance.
She came out of the hall in a silk robe, her hair in a towel, her face bare and glowing. She saw the two men and stopped, a look of perfectly calibrated surprise on her face.
"Oh," she said, her hand going to her chest. "You must be the agents. Eric didn't mention you were so imposing."
Walker, who was built like a front door, seemed to swell slightly. Doyle, wiry and quick, looked at her with sharp curiosity.
Sophia drifted across the room, her bare feet silent on the hardwood, and settled into the armchair by the window. She crossed her legs and looked from Doyle to Walker with the unhurried attention of a woman who had all the time in the world.
"The Krav Maga thing," she said, as if they'd been discussing it for hours. "I can see why you'd ask. It was my father, really. He was worried about me going to university in London. So he had a friend teach me a few things. Four years of a few things." She shrugged, a small, helpless gesture. "I never thought I'd actually use them."
Walker took another cookie. "You used them very effectively."
"I was scared," Sophia said. "Fear does funny things to memory. I keep trying to piece it together, but it's all muddled. The police asked if I'd trained, and I honestly couldn't tell them where most of it came from." She looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "I'm not proud of hurting people. I just didn't know what else to do."
Doyle studied her for a long moment. There was a sharpness in his eyes, a professional skepticism. Then he softened, almost imperceptibly, and reached for another cookie.
"These really are excellent," he said.
"My grandmother's recipe," Sophia said, brightening. And then, because she had never learned to quit while ahead, she added, "I'll bring some by the Agency on Friday, if you like."
Walker's sunglasses lifted. "You want to come to the Agency?"
"I've never seen a spy headquarters," Sophia said, leaning forward, her eyes wide. "Is it like in the films? With the big screens and the accents? Or is it more like an office with good lighting?"
Doyle laughed. It was a short, surprised sound, like a bark. "More like an office with terrible lighting."
"You'd be surprised what we can get away with," Walker said, and there was a hint of warmth in his voice now, buried but present.
Eric stood in the kitchen doorway, the cookie tin still in his hands, and watched the two of them melt. It happened slowly, the way ice melts in a warm room, in degrees so subtle they were almost invisible. By the time Doyle was telling her about the Agency's filing system, and Walker was offering her the last cookie, the interrogation was over. It had been a gentle, thorough campaign of charm, and there was no trace that it had ever been anything else.
"Well," Doyle said, standing and brushing crumbs from his jacket. "I think we've got what we need. You've been very helpful, Ms. Rossi."
"Please, call me Sophia."
"Sophia." He smiled, and it lit up his sharp face. "And I'm sorry about the trouble. These things, we have to be thorough."
"Of course you do," Sophia said, walking them to the door. "I'd expect nothing less. And I do mean it, about the biscuits. Next Friday. I'll leave them at reception."
"We don't have a reception," Walker said.
"I'll find a way," Sophia said, with a wink.
The door closed behind them. Silence filled the room.
Eric set the cookie tin on the counter with a clatter. "You just offered to bring biscuits to an intelligence agency."
"I brought them biscuits," Sophia said, turning to face him. Her silk robe had slipped off one shoulder. She looked effortlessly magnificent. "It's called hospitality."
"They came to interrogate you."
"They came to interrogate me, and they left asking for more cookies." She padded across the room and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face into his chest. "The technique of building trust is like pacing a conversation. You move slowly, you give them something to believe in, and by the time they leave, they're not investigating anymore. They're hoping they'll see you again."
Eric's hands settled on her shoulders. "You didn't answer their questions."
"I answered all of them," Sophia said, moving her mouth to his collarbone. "I just answered the ones I wanted to hear."
He pulled back far enough to look at her. Her eyes were bright, mischievous, full of secrets. He couldn't tell if she was Sophia Rossi, sharp-witted curator, or Agent Velvet Lullaby, super spy on a mission to enchant him. And the terrible thing was, he didn't think it mattered anymore. The woman in front of him was both, and neither, and she was holding him in a way that made his suspension, his ruined career, his lost certainties, all seem like small prices to pay.
"Friday," he said, weakly. "You're actually going to bring biscuits to an intelligence agency."
"Every Friday," she said. "Until they give me a badge."
He laughed. It came out unsteady, full of dread and wonder. "I believe you would."
"Good." She pulled him down and kissed him, soft and warm. "That's the first sensible thing you've said all month."
He was still smiling when he realised what he was thinking. The thought arrived soft and unbidden, the way dangerous thoughts do. A woman who could charm two Agency overseers in under an hour, who could turn an interrogation into a standing invitation. Give her a badge and she'd run the place by Christmas.
He didn't say it out loud. He didn't have to.
Sophia's eyes caught the thought before it could get away, and he watched the sparkle ignite. A slow, delighted kindling, like someone striking a match in a dark room. She knew. He could see it in the way her lips curved, in the way her weight shifted onto the balls of her feet. The part of her that was Agent Velvet Lullaby had locked onto a new target.
"No," Eric said, stepping back.
She took a step forward. "I didn't say anything."
"You're about to."
"Am I?" She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that had launched a thousand interrogation room confessions. "That's very presumptuous of me."
He backed up, his heels finding the edge of the living room rug. "I know that look. That's the look you get right before you do something that's technically illegal and definitely inadvisable."
"Eric." She strolled toward him, unhurried, her bare feet silent on the hardwood. "I'm hurt. I'm a law-abiding citizen. I just spent an hour with two law enforcement professionals, and they left with crumbs in their pockets and a spring in their step."
"They also left thinking you were going to bring them biscuits every Friday."
"And I will." She rounded the coffee table, and he instinctively circled the other way. "I'm a woman of my word."
They were orbiting now, circling the sofa like two dancers who hadn't agreed on the music. Eric kept his eyes on her. She kept her smile on him.
"I was thinking something," he admitted, because he never could lie to her, not even with his face.
"I know." She paused at the armchair, running her fingers along its back. "You were thinking about door codes. Security clearances. A lanyard with a picture of me on it."
"I wasn't."
"You were." Her voice dropped, low and warm. "You were thinking about how good I'd be at it. How natural. How the Agency would take one look at me and wonder how you'd been hiding me from them all this time."
He backed toward the kitchen doorway. "You're projecting."
"I'm observing." She took a slow, deliberate step. "You want it, sweetheart. You're just afraid to say it out loud, because if you say it, it might become real. And if it becomes real, you'll have to admit that your boring little analyst's life is gone forever and what's left is something much more interesting."
His back hit the doorframe. He was cornered. She knew it, and the sparkle in her eyes sharpened to a point.
"But I'm not going to apply to the Agency," she said, and the words landed like a pardon. "I already have a mission."
Eric frowned. "You do?"
She made a small turn, starting her approach again, gliding toward him across the tile. "It's a deep cover operation. Long term. Extremely demanding. Requires a lot of staying in, a lot of domestic operations, a lot of, what do you call them, strategic acquisitions at IKEA."
"IKEA."
"There's a white picket fence." She held up her hand, painting the picture in the air between them. "There's a garden, with rosemary, because it's hardy, and it smells nice. There are two tiny agents, one with your smile and one with my ability to get out of any conversation by offering sweets."
His mouth went dry. "Sophia."
"And there's you," she said, stopping just out of arm's reach. "There's always you. The mission is you. The whole, entire, never-ending mission, and I don't need a security clearance to see it through."
He wanted to say something. He wanted to point out that she was beautiful, that she was frightening, that she had him backed against a kitchen doorway with her words and her hair still damp from the shower and the smell of cookies in the air. He opened his mouth, and what came out was a laugh.
"You can't say things like that."
"I can." She stepped in, and he was trapped. Her hands landed on his chest, warm through his t-shirt. "I just did."
"Sophia, I don't know if this is what you want. I don't know if this is you, or if it's the suggestion, or if it's some combination I'll never untangle. And I love you either way, but I can't just, I can't pretend I'm not terrified that one day you'll wake up and there'll be a man in a balaclava in your kitchen and you'll realise you didn't actually want any of this."
He'd been holding that in for a month. It came out in a rush, unsteady and raw.
Sophia's smile softened. She looked at him the way she looked at a painting she loved, taking in every line and shadow.
"I'm ready," she said simply. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life. But I know you're not there yet. I know you're still figuring out if this is you, or if it's me, or if it's something we made together." She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, her fingers lingering. "I'll wait. I'm very good at waiting. The best spies always are."
Eric's throat was tight. "Sophia."
"But there's something I need you to know first." She pressed forward, gentle and inexorable, and his shoulder blades met the wall beside the kitchen doorway. Her face was inches from his. Her breath was warm and soft, and her eyes were everywhere at once, searching his.
"What?" he asked. His voice came out quiet, scraped thin.
She kissed him.
It was not a perfunctory kiss. It was not a playful kiss, not the kind she'd given him at the door minutes ago. It was slow, thorough, a kiss that said everything she had been trying to say and some things he wasn't sure she had words for. Her hands slid up his chest, around his neck, and he forgot about his suspension, about Aldrich's beige office, about the two agents disappearing down the stairs. There was only her, and the press of her body against his, and the small, soft sound she made when she finally pulled back.
"That," she said, breathless, "is what I needed you to know."
Eric leaned against the wall, knees weak, heart pounding. He found his voice.
"That's, that's a very, that's a good thing to know."
Sophia smiled, slow and satisfied. "Good." She smoothed his collar, a gesture of pure domesticity, and added, "Also, we're out of milk."