Chapter 9: Tropical Waves
The water was warm enough that Eric couldn't tell where the heat of the sun ended and the ocean began. He waded through the shallows, Sophia cradled against his chest, her arms looped around his neck, her legs kicking lazily against the foam. The private island had cost him three months of savings and a favor he had not wanted to call in, but watching her laugh with her head tilted back, saltwater beading on her chin, he decided it was worth every penny and every ounce of pride.
"You're doing that thing again," she said.
"What thing?"
"The thing where you look at me like I'm a math problem you're afraid to solve."
Eric adjusted his grip, hoisting her higher. "I'm carrying you through the ocean. I think I'm allowed to look at you however I want."
"Fair point." She grinned, bright and sharp, her emerald eyes catching the sun. "Admit it, though. A month ago you were convinced this entire adventure would end with me in a padded cell, and now here you are, married, on a private beach, carrying me like a newlywed in a rom-com."
"I never said padded cell."
"You thought it."
He could not argue with that. He had thought a great many things over the past two months, most of them anxious, all of them wrong in ways that delighted him. The woman in his arms had stopped four armed robbers with her bare hands, charmed two detectives and two oversight agents, and accepted his proposal in the middle of a staged interrogation. She was, by any measure, extraordinary. And she was also, at this exact moment, dripping seawater down the front of his linen shirt.
"I think," Sophia said, stretching the words out, "you owe me a formal acknowledgment of victory. A spoken one. In front of witnesses."
"The only witnesses are a crab and that seagull."
"Better than a jury."
Eric sighed, theatrical and long-suffering. He had learned that she responded best to playful defeat; it made her eyes go soft and her mouth curl into that particular smile he had come to love, the one that said she had won and they both knew it. "Sophia Rossi, you were right. I was wrong. This outcome was never in doubt."
She nodded, satisfied. "And why was that?"
"Because you're Sophia Rossi."
"Go on."
"Because Sophia Rossi is the most stubborn, brilliant, infuriating woman I have ever met, and no force on earth can stop her from getting what she wants."
"Not what I was going for, but I'll take it." She leaned back in his arms, looking up at the pale blue sky. "I was going to say because I'm irresistible. No man or woman can resist my charms. It's a documented fact."
"Documented where?"
"My wedding vows. You signed them."
Eric laughed, the sound swallowed by the crash of a wave rolling in. The water pushed against his thighs, the sand shifting under his feet, and he tightened his hold on her so she would not slip. She did not seem worried. She never seemed worried, not anymore, not since the persona had settled into her bones like a second skin.
"Velvet Lullaby," he said quietly. "Do you mean her?"
Sophia blinked, and for a moment something flickered across her face, quick as a fish darting under the surface. Then she winked, lazy and sure. "Same thing."
She pulled him down before he could ask what that meant, her hands clutching in his shirt, dragging him off balance. They went under together in a tangle of limbs and laughter, the ocean closing over them, cold and bright and full of bubbles. Eric came up gasping, salt stinging his eyes, and found Sophia already treading water in front of him, hair plastered to her skull, grinning like a pirate who had just found the treasure.
"You," he said, wiping water from his face, "are a menace."
"Thank you."
"I meant it as an insult."
"I know." She swam closer, bobbing in the swell. "That's why I'm taking it as a compliment."
They floated there for a while, letting the gentle current rock them. The island rose behind them, a lush green crown over white sand, and the beach house sat nestled among the palms with its wide veranda and hammock that had seen far more use than either of them had intended. Eric thought about the week ahead: snorkeling, hiking the ridge, doing absolutely nothing for hours at a time. It felt like a life of someone who had not spent his twenties hunched over intelligence reports in a windowless office.
"I love you," he said.
Sophia stopped kicking, bobbing still in the water. "I know."
"No, I mean it. I love you. All of you. Whoever you are, whatever you are."
She tilted her head, studying him. The water lapped at her shoulders, her hands moving in slow, idle circles. "Even the spy?"
"Especially the spy."
"Even the curator who can't resist a mystery?"
"Especially her."
"Even the woman who's going to make you carry me back to shore because I'm getting tired?"
Eric laughed. "Especially her." He paddled closer and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her against him in the water. She came willingly, her legs wrapping around his hips, her arms settling on his shoulders. The sun beat down on them both, and the salt dried in fine white lines on her skin.
"You know," she murmured, close enough that her breath tickled his ear, "for a boring analyst, you've turned out to be quite the romantic."
"Desperate times."
She laughed, the sound bright and genuine, and kissed him. It started soft, exploratory, the way their first kisses had been back in that apartment with the candles and the ridiculous stage setup. But it deepened quickly, the sea holding them both afloat, her fingers sliding into his wet hair, his hands gripping her waist. The kiss tasted of salt and sun. It something that was purely her.
When they finally broke apart, breathless and bobbing, she rested her forehead against his.
"Is this what you wanted?" she asked. "When you hid behind that stage at the Houdini Theatre, when you tried to talk yourself out of hypnotizing me, when you panicked about the robbery, when you proposed in a fake interrogation. Is this what you were hoping for?"
Eric considered the question. He had spent so much time worrying about what might go wrong, so much energy trying to control the situation, that he had never stopped to imagine this exact moment. The turquoise water, the white sand, the woman in his arms who knew exactly who she was, whether that answer was Sophia Rossi or Velvet Lullaby or something in between.
"No," he admitted. "I didn't have the imagination for it. I was still thinking in reports and risk assessments."
"And now?"
He kissed her again, quick and soft. "Now I'm thinking I should've proposed sooner."
Sophia's grin split her face, bright enough to rival the sun. She unhooked her legs from his waist and pushed off, swimming backwards toward the shore, calling over her shoulder, "Race you to the hammock. Loser buys piña coladas."
"You're already halfway there!"
"Exactly. I play to win, darling. It's in the job description."
Eric watched her slice through the water, strong and sure and endlessly surprising, and he thought of what Madame Radu had said: that the mark only does what they want to do anyway, that Agent Lullaby had always been there.
He dove after her, the water closing over his head, and swam.