ophia sat on the floor in the bathroom at the hotel and tried not to cry.

“Soph?” Dave knocked softly on the door. “Can I come in?”

“It’s unlocked,” she called, swiftly wiping her eyes and running both hands down her face.

He opened the door and poked his head in first. “You all right?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m feeling much better.”

“You think it was something you ate?”

She just shook her head, because she didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

“Next time, please, don’t shut me out,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Sophia said. “I just needed... a little space.”

When they’d first arrived at the hotel and she’d rushed into this bathroom, she’d actually been surprised that Dave had left her alone, despite her insistence.

He’d used the time, though, to change out of his bloodstained shirt and into one of his faded T-shirts, which was good. Bloodstains made her queasy during the best of times.

She was also glad he’d changed because with his T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, with his hair a mess from running his hands through it, he looked like the Dave she’d known for years—like a guy who worked in tech support. A com-spesh, or even a hardware dweeb. Or maybe a techni-cal writer—hammering out his first angst-filled novel during his lunches and coffee breaks.

He certainly didn’t look like a super-spy compatriot of 007’s.

“I don’t know what I’m most upset about,” she told him now as he came all the way into the room. “The fact that you went to Kazabek, or the fact that you thought going there was no big deal. I guess when it’s said and done, though, it’s pretty much the same thing.”

Dave leaned back out into the hotel suite and said, “I’m sorry, sir. I know this is an imposition, but could I ask you and Karmody to sit out in the hall?”

There was a murmur of voices, after which Dave said, “Thank you, sir,” and then she heard the sound of the heavy hotel room door closing.

He turned back to her, closing the bathroom door behind him even though he’d emptied out their hotel suite. “I’m sorry I upset you,” he said as he sat near her, on the edge of the bathtub. He lowered himself down carefully, gingerly, and she knew he wasn’t taking the painkillers the doctor had prescribed for him.

“But you’re not sorry that you went,” she inferred.

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not. Tom’s job is to be overly cautious, and rightly so, but he wasn’t in Kazabek with me, so he doesn’t know—”

“I’m aware of that, yes,” she said. “That you went in there alone—”

“I’m good at what I do,” he tried to reassure her. “I know when I’ve been compromised, and I wasn’t. There are now four people on this planet who know where I was last week, and they’re all right here, in this hotel. I went in using a different name, a completely different identity.”

“And the people you talked to, while you were there...? Didn’t they know you?”

“No.”

She sat there for a moment, ingesting that information before she asked, “Who, exactly, did you talk to?”

“Does it really matter?” he countered.

Did it? Probably not. Still... “Was it anyone I know?”

“Maybe, but probably not. I didn’t get any names, but they were all servants—women—who worked in Bashir’s palace,” he said quietly, “during the time you were held prisoner there. They did laundry and... cleaning. They washed the floors and... other things.”

Sophia had to look away from him. Her stomach was churning again, even though it was empty. It had to be empty—she’d thrown up so much already, both on the side of the road and here in this bathroom, too.

“What did they tell you?” she asked.

He was silent for so long, she finally looked up. And she found him still watching her, his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped together.

God, how many times had he sat exactly like that as they’d talked—sometimes well into the night. This man was her best friend, and had been for years. Good old reliable Dave, always there when she’d needed a shoulder to cry on. Or someone to have sex with after years of zero intimate contact due to terrible prior emotional and physical trauma.

Sophia had always loved Dave’s smile, but he wasn’t smiling now. His mouth was tight and the muscle was jumping on the side of his jaw. The hardness in his eyes and on his face—the edge that she’d seen repeatedly since he’d been knifed—was back. And she realized it wasn’t so much an air of danger as it was determination and self-confidence—or perhaps more correctly, a lack of his previous uncertainty and self-doubt.

For years, she hadn’t thought of him as being particularly attractive, but he was. It was true, he wasn’t the most handsome man on the planet—his face was a little too long, the bags under his eyes too pronounced, making him look, always, just a little bit sad. But the bright intelligence and gleam of humor that shone in his eyes was tremendously appealing—although there wasn’t much humor there now, as he finally answered her.

“Everything,” he whispered. “They told me everything, Soph. So now you don’t have to. Because now I know.”

She laughed. It was that or start to cry. “And that’s why you risked your life,” she said again. “To find out something that I could have told you—that I would have told you, if you’d asked? What happened, Sophia, after that bastard killed your husband and claimed possession of you and everything you owned? What exactly did he do to make the experience even more of a nightmare? I would have told you everything. But no. You had to go to Kazabek and maybe get yourself killed.”

“I’ve been back there,” he said. “Dozens of times since—”

“Oh!” she cut him off. “God! Is that supposed to make it okay?”

“It is what it is,” Dave pointed out. “It’s not like you didn’t know.” He faltered. “You did know, didn’t you? That I’ve gone there on assignment?”

And there they sat, staring at each other, as Sophia realized the problem. Her problem—because it was entirely hers. Her eyes ached with a renewed rush of unshed tears, and she fought to keep them from falling.

“No,” she said. “Actually, I didn’t.”

“Jesus.” Dave was aghast. “Really? I mean, I know I didn’t talk about it. Not with you, because, you know, Kazabek. Not your favorite place in the world, but... I thought...” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

“You’re not supposed to go to Kazabek,” she interrupted him. “You’re also not supposed to get stabbed in a parking lot.”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “That’s kind of a given, across the board.”

“No,” she said. “You’re not. You. Dave.”

It was clear that he didn’t understand.

“It’s my fault,” Sophia told him. “Entirely. So don’t you dare apologize again. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was thinking it—”

“Thinking?” he repeated. “Soph, you lost me.”

She tried to explain. “Like, I wanted the biggest excitement in our lives to come from... from... deciding what color tile to use when we re-do the bathroom. From, I don’t know, having the toilet clog. From outsmarting the coyotes to keep them out of the trash. I didn’t want to be here—worrying if you’re going to get an infection from being stabbed—let alone worrying about who’s going to stab you next. Or shoot you. Or... God only knows what they’re going to do next! I didn’t realize I was signing on for that.”

He misunderstood. “I know. And I should have told you more extensively about the situation with Anise—”

“This isn’t about Anise freakin’ Turiano!” She cut him off. “It’s about who you really are. What you really are. Please, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that you deceived me, because you didn’t. I’m the one who lied. To myself. About you. Because you’re not the man I thought you were.” Dear Lord, she was completely messing this up, and that last bit in particular had come out totally wrong. “The man I thought I knew.”

That wasn’t right, either. And Dave couldn’t have looked more devastated and wounded if she’d taken out a gun and shot him point-blank.

“How can you say something like that?” he whispered, before she could even attempt to try again, “and then claim it’s not about Anise?”

“It’s not,” she said, desperate now to explain that which she hadn’t even completely figured out for herself. Her head was filled with so much noise, so much chaos, and her stomach churned and boiled. “What I meant was...” She stopped for a moment, trying to organize her thoughts, to find the right words. “When we first got together—” She defined it more specifically: “When we became lovers, it was because I wanted to be with the man I had lunch with for all those years. The... the Dave who has to watch his weight and forgets to get his hair cut. The Dave who would rather talk to me on the phone for hours in his Las Vegas hotel room than hit the tables in the casino. I didn’t want trips to Kazabek, and death threats and knife wounds. I didn’t want James Bond. I wanted... to feel safe. I wanted a relationship with someone who’s... I don’t know...”

“Boring?” He supplied the word.

“No,” Sophia said. “Well, yes, but in a good way. Normal, Dave. I wanted normal.”

And great. Her explanation had made him feel even worse.

“And in a company filled with exceptional men,” he said quietly, “I guess I fit that bill. Wow. Okay. That answers a lot of questions, like what exactly is someone like you doing with a guy like me.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t you see? I thought you were the exception.”

He didn’t say it, but she knew what he was thinking. He was the exception—by being, in her eyes, unexceptional.

“For the record, I’m hardly James Bond.”

“I’m sorry,” she said sharply. “Did I misunderstand you just a few minutes ago when you reassured me that your going to Kazabek was no big thing and—”

“So what does this mean?” It was typical of Dave, to bulldoze right to the bottom line. His eyes were dark with his hurt, and with something else, too. Anger. “You don’t want James Bond, and apparently you feel I’m enough like James Bond to warrant this discussion, so... What are saying, Soph?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked. “Because...” He struggled to compose himself, as he nodded his head. “That’s probably a good idea.”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes. “That’s not—”

“If these people are after me, then—”

“I’m just trying to be honest with you, while I wrap my head around the reality, which is different from what I’d imagined—”

“It’s better if we’re not together,” Dave said.

“I don’t want to break up!” she said. “I love you!”

“Do you?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.” God, she was going to be sick again. She had to close her eyes and grit her teeth.

“Because it sounds like you’re not sure you really know me. It sounds like you think I’m a little too much like Decker, and if you’re going to be with a Decker, you might as well go for the real one—”

“Oh, my God!” she said. “How could someone so smart be so stupid? This has nothing to do with Decker and even if it did? He’s made it very clear that he doesn’t want me!”

Oh, wrong, wrong, wrong thing to say, as true a statement as it was.

“I’m sorry.” She said it right away, but it was too late. The damage was done.

Dave was already standing up. “Hokay,” he said. “That’s great.”

“Dave, please, wait. I’m so sorry—”

“No,” he said. “I think we better end this conversation before... I’m exhausted. I didn’t sleep on the plane and you’re ill, and we’re clearly not—”

“I don’t want Decker,” she told him as the tears she could no longer hold back slid down her face. “I want you.”

“Lunch me,” he reminded her. “Fat me. Boring me. I get it, Soph. I do. But I’m not the man you thought I was, and frankly? This current version of me is not sure how to give you what you want. So I’m going to go for what I want. Which is you, safe, while I find and neutralize the threat. If that’s too James Bond for you? So be it.” He opened the door, but then, instead of walking out, he came back over to her, in a move that was classic Dave. “Come on. Let’s get you into bed. You’ll be more comfortable. I’ll move the trash can close, in case you need to...” He was so gentle, his hands so warm as he helped her to her feet, helped her out of the bathroom and over to the bed. “I’ll sleep out on the couch.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yeah, I do,” he said, then used the words she’d said to him earlier. “I, uh, need some space, too.”

He was lying. Sophia knew that what he really needed was the ability to wake up before she did, and leave—on some crazy mission that wouldn’t just neutralize the threat but would probably get himself neutralized as well.

It was now or quite possibly never—and he had to know before he left. So as he took most of the throw pillows off the big bed, as he pulled back the covers so she could climb in, Sophia blurted it out with absolutely no lead-in, no setup, no warning. “I need to tell you that... I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.”

Even after their hellish day, Tracy Shapiro still smelled incredibly good.

Decker stood there, in the hall of Sam and Alyssa’s house, as she got closer. And closer.

She spoke, firmly, decisively, clearly, concisely. “Go into the bathroom, take off your clothes, and get into the shower.”

“This is hardly the time or place—”

“I’m willing to bet that with you, it’s never the time or place,” she countered, “which makes here and now as good as any. I’ll get my computer. And my phone. We’ll hear if Jules or Alyssa contacts us. Until then, all we’re doing is waiting. And getting cleaned up. So go on. Get cleaned up. Leave the door open.”

“I’m not—”

“I didn’t say you could talk.”

When he opened his mouth to speak again, she reached between them—they were standing so close she didn’t have to reach too far. She grabbed his entire set of equipment, with a grip that wasn’t exactly gentle, but wasn’t exactly not. Regardless, he nearly went through the ceiling.

Jesus! He just managed to bite back the word as he reached down and caught her wrist.

But Tracy said, just as sharply, “And I certainly didn’t say you could touch me.”

It was the moment of truth—he knew it as well as she did. Whatever was going to happen—or not happen—depended upon what he said or did next.

But then she stood on her toes and kissed him—just a brief, delicate flutter of her soft lips against his. “Shhh,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”

So he let go of her wrist and just stood there, silently, hands at his sides, breathing hard, as her tear-his-balls-off grip turned into something else, something far more like a caress, yet still absolutely possessive. He closed his eyes as she touched him, cupped him, stroked him.

“Do you like this?” she whispered, and when he opened his eyes to look at her, he saw that she was smiling just a little—the corners of her mouth quirking up. Probably because she’d just asked him a question, yet had told him not to speak.

He nodded—one short jerk of his head—as he held her gaze.

“Me too,” she murmured. “Go figure. So go ahead—into the bathroom. Take off your clothes and get into the shower.”

Decker hesitated, because it meant he’d have to pull away from her. And his response to her question—did he like this?—had been an understatement. Like was hardly the right word. It was possible he’d never before been this overwhelmingly hard for anyone—not in his entire life.

“Do it. Now,” Tracy said in that take-no-shit, commanding-officer tone, and he moved, pulling free from her grasp, which left him feeling cold and almost bereft.

But she was right behind him, and he could feel her watching him from the doorway as he unfastened the makeshift bandage around his arm and shrugged out of his overshirt. His shoulder holster and sidearm hit the floor with a thud as he wasn’t quite careful enough with it, in his haste to pull off his T-shirt.

The pain as he raised his arm made his eyes water, but he didn’t give a shit. He just pushed it aside—both the pain and his analysis of whether or not it heightened his completely fucked-up sense of pleasure. At other times, he would’ve been way too far inside of his own head, but not now.

He was completely present, here in this little room, and he hesitated only slightly before he lifted the elastic waist of his shorts over his raging hard-on and slipped them down and off his legs.

He was doing what she’d told him to, and he looked up at her as she made a little sound of approval—a little “Mmm,” as if he were something being wheeled in on a dessert cart.

He loved the way she was looking at him, but the fact that he loved it made him feel self-conscious, so he turned and stepped into the shower. The water was too hot, and he adjusted it before he turned back to reach for the shower curtain.

“Leave it open.”

He put his arm back down, as she added, “Do not move. I’ll be right back.”

Tracy vanished—he could hear her heading swiftly down the stairs. She was going to get her computer and her phone, as she promised. Jesus, with her out of the room, he was suddenly shaking, his knees actually weak. He knew he should shut the curtain—that doing so would further break the spell, but he didn’t move. He didn’t want to move.

He knew, also, that he should take himself in hand, literally—and remove sex from the table. But he didn’t do that, either.

Instead he stood there, as the warm water ran down his face, down his body. His head and shoulders and arm stung, as did dozens of other little scrapes and cuts all over him, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to get clean so that Tracy would touch him again.

Please Jesus, let her come back and touch him again.

His arm screamed as he pushed the water out of his face, squeegeeing it back through his hair.

“I said don’t move.”

She was back, putting her computer on the lid of the toilet, then closing the bathroom door behind her.

As he watched, she opened the mirrored medicine cabinet to peruse its contents, then rifled through both the closet and the cabinet under the sink. Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t seem to find it. She didn’t seem particularly perturbed, though, as she then took off her shirt and untied the rain jacket from her waist, leaving herself clad only in her underwear. And yes, her bra was, just as she’d described it, a relatively sturdy piece of equipment—white, like her panties—but sexy just the same.

Of course, Tracy Shapiro would’ve been sexy in a burlap sack.

The clasp of her bra was in the front, between her perfect breasts, and she reached as if to unfasten it as he watched, transfixed, as water pounded on his back.

“Don’t look at me.”

He obeyed, averting his gaze, but... “Permission to speak.” His voice sounded rough and almost unfamiliar to his ears. He didn’t wait for her to grant her permission, because he was afraid she might say no. “That doesn’t work for me. The not looking...”

She changed her directive. “I agree. Don’t stop looking at me and... Wash yourself.”

He found the soap by feel as she held his gaze, her own hands still on that front clasp. She waited to open it until he was lathering himself, and then there she was, in her incredible, full-breasted glory, her nipples tightly peaked, a rosy shade of dark pink on triangles of pale that were shaped like a bikini top—a contrast to her lightly tanned arms, stomach, and chest.

She smiled then—probably at the gone-to-heaven expression on his face—but then immediately wiped it away as she got back into this role that she was so obviously enjoying playing.

But that moment of reality was jarring. What in hell was he doing here?

This was not a casual hookup with some beautiful stranger. This woman worked with him. For him, really, although she’d argued against that point rather persuasively.

He’d always liked her.

And after the past few days, he really, really liked her.

He liked her point-blank, in-his-face opinions and questions. He liked her seemingly mindless chatter—because it wasn’t mindless. She always had a point, even if it took her a while to get there. He liked her quicksilver smile and her melodic laughter. He liked the way she rolled her eyes and waved off the many things she considered inconsequential.

And he loved her matter-of-fact adventurousness when it came to sex. It shouldn’t have surprised him that she’d be into something like this, but it did.

The way she looked naked was mere icing on the cake. Outrageously delicious and perfect icing, sure, but a total bonus.

But icing or no, it seemed unlikely that this was going to end well. How were they going to be able to look at each other when they next went into the office? How—

“Stop thinking,” she ordered him curtly. “I can tell that you’re having second thoughts, so just stop it.” She stepped out of her panties and into the shower with him, closing the curtain behind her, cocooning them into what felt like a warm and completely private world.

She pushed her way under the water, gasping as she let it run down her face and her incredible body, as she reached up to push her fingers through her now-wet hair.

“I don’t think I can do this,” he said, as he tried to shift back. But there was nowhere to go and his ass bumped the cold tile.

She pushed the water from her face, as if surfacing from a swimming pool, and blinked at him with long, dark eyelashes that were matted and glistening, making her look like a mermaid, escaped from the sea.

“I’m sorry,” she said, one elegant eyebrow raised. “Did I give you permission to speak?”

“May I have permission to speak?”

“No,” she said, holding out the soap to him. “Wash me. And don’t stop until I tell you to.”

Wash her.

It was then he heard it. The sound of a motor—a low rumble, way in the background.

In a flash, Decker dropped the soap and shut off the water, pushing Tracy back against the wall, one hand up and over her mouth. “Shhh,” he warned her as she clung to him to keep her balance, as he used his body to trap her more securely against the tile wall.

She was soft, she was slick, and his leg was pressed tightly between her thighs, and Jesus, he was right—the sound that he’d heard was that of the electric garage door going up.

Tracy’s eyes were wide as she stared at him over the top of his hand as she heard it, too.

He scrambled out of the shower and grabbed his sidearm, yanking it free from its holster. He had no pants—although he probably wouldn’t have taken the time to pull them on, even if he had a pair.

He turned off the bathroom light, listening at the door before throwing it open, and checking the hall in both directions.

It was empty. He sensed Tracy behind him—she’d wrapped herself in a towel. There was silence, but it was brief before the rumble started again—this time no doubt the door was going back down.

“Get your clothes and follow me,” he told Tracy nearly silently, and she swiftly gathered them up before following him down the stairs. “Get ready to run. I’m going to—”

“I’m not going anywhere without you!”

“Yes, you are,” he countered. “It’s my turn to give the orders. You’re going out the back door—”

“Tracy?” A female voice called from the kitchen.

“Oh, my God,” Tracy said. “Linds?”

And yes, it was indeed Troubleshooters operative Lindsey Jenkins who came around the corner, her weapon drawn. She immediately raised her hands at the sight of Decker’s.

“Whoops,” Lindsey said, her eyes widening even more as she realized he was naked. “Holy shit! Sorry. Sorry!” She started to laugh—and disguised it as a cough as she respectfully averted her eyes, and then turned around. “I’m guessing you didn’t get the message that we were on our way over...?”

“Obviously not,” Tracy said. “Shoot, Deck, you’re bleeding again.” Apparently she’d missed Lindsey’s use of the plural pronoun, because she whipped off her towel and tried to use it to stanch the flow.

And, damnit, blood was dripping from his elbow onto the carpet runner on the stairs. Starrett was going to be pissed. Still, it wasn’t as bad as it had been.

“Why don’t you get some clothes from the truck and throw your jeans into the dryer,” Tracy told him. “I’ll see if there are any bandages in the bathroom. If not, we’ll improvise. I’m going to finish getting cleaned up and—”

She gasped as she caught sight of the man standing in the shadows, just behind Lindsey. It wasn’t Mark Jenkins, but rather one of his SEAL friends. The quiet one. Jay Lopez.

“Oh, good. Hi, Jay,” Tracy said, holding her clothes up in an attempt to cover herself. It didn’t work. Deck tried to hand the towel back to her, but she didn’t take it. She turned and ran upstairs.

“Hey, Tracy. I’ll, uh, do another perimeter check of the house,” Lopez said.

“Good plan,” Lindsey said briskly. “I’ll make a quick sweep of the second floor and—”

Deck tucked the towel around his waist, because his arm really wasn’t bleeding all that much, and... Jesus, this looked bad—because it looked like exactly what it was.

“Help Tracy,” he ordered Lindsey. “Lopez, don’t go far. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible. Meet me in the garage.”

Lopez nodded and vanished.

Lindsey paused as she passed him on the stairs, stopping two steps up from him, so that they were eye level. “I really am sorry. But for the record? Tracy’s a friend of mine. If you’re taking advantage of her? I will kick your ass.”

“Help. Tracy.” He said it again, more clearly this time.

She nodded. “I’m going to say the same thing to her, because you’re my friend, too. But for what it’s worth, Chief?” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled, not just with amusement but with genuine approval. “Hoo-yah.”

Sophia was pregnant.

Dave stared at her, and she stared back at him as she sat on the bed in the hotel suite, chin held high and defiant. She was crying, but she was wiping her tears away as fast as they fell.

“I’m not sorry,” she said. “You’re looking at me as if I should say that I’m sorry, but I’m not.”

“How...?” he breathed.

She tilted her head slightly and gave him a look, and he laughed—he couldn’t help it. Sophia was pregnant.

“Okay,” Dave said. “Yeah. I know that how, but... you’re on the pill.” Even as he said the words, he remembered their first time, that first night. “But you skipped a day.”

She nodded. “I didn’t think it would matter. And even if it did... I thought...”

Dave nodded, too. That very first night, at the bar in the hotel in Sacramento, they’d talked about the fact that they both wanted children.

Someday.

Of course that was before Anise Turiano roared back to life, like an apparition from hell. That was back when he’d foolishly believed he had a future.

He’d found his own little piece of heaven that night, in Sophia’s arms, in her kisses, in her touch. She’d pulled him back onto a hotel room bed very much like this one, where they’d made love for that very first time.

He’d been so careful about making sure he didn’t pin her down, even though he was on top. He’d been careful to pay attention to everything she said and did, every sound she made. He’d been careful—except for the part where he completely forgot to put on a condom.

“I remember,” Sophia whispered now, “that night so clearly.”

Dave remembered, too. Time had seemed to stand still as he’d kissed her, touched her, loved her. He’d moved almost excruciatingly slowly, with long, deep thrusts and equally languorous withdrawals. He could close his eyes and still see, burned into his brain, an image of Sophia’s beautiful face, her eyes closed and her lips slightly parted in ecstasy. He’d kissed her throat and the smooth softness of the underside of her chin, tasting her with his tongue as she spread her legs wider to take more of him, all of him.

He’d redefined pleasure that night as she’d come around him, clinging to him and kissing him, her mouth so hungry, so sweet, as her release seemed to shake her to her soul. He’d come, too, practically in unison with her, in a powerful rush, in slow motion as the entire world as he knew it was torn in half, as colors flashed behind his eyelids, as a full freaking choir of angels sang their hearts out.

He’d told her that he loved her, the words damn near ripped from his throat, as he crashed into her, inside of her—no barriers between them.

And then? After the fireworks were over, as he’d tried to gather up and re-form his brain from the shards that had exploded across the universe, Sophia had sighed and breathed his name. “Oh, Dave...”

And any lingering doubts that he may have had about entering a relationship wherein he knew, up-front, that he was his lover’s second choice...?

Completely obliterated.

He’d had no idea at the time that he and Sophia would have such a lasting souvenir from that evening. But it seemed somehow fitting and, yes, even perfect and sweet that they had.

And okay, maybe he had had an idea—when he’d realized that he’d failed to protect her. His panic had lasted about two seconds, before she’d reassured him that she was taking birth control pills to regulate her periods. She’d missed a day, yes—hard to keep up with a prescription regimen while being held hostage by crazed neo-Nazis—but it would be, she’d told him, no big deal.

Oops.

“And it’s not bad for the...” He couldn’t say the word baby—he was afraid he might burst into tears. “For everyone’s health? That you’ve kept taking the pills even though you’re pregnant?”

She shook her head. “The insert—the information—that comes with the prescription recommends testing for pregnancy if you don’t get your period when you’re supposed to and... We should probably get one of those home tests to be absolutely sure but... Dave, I’m pretty convinced.”

Dave nodded. “I’ll get one. There’s a drugstore across the street.”

“I’ve been pregnant before,” she reminded him. “The morning sickness started at about eight weeks then, too. And it’s really morning, noon, and night sickness.”

Morning sickness. Holy shit. For some reason, the mention of morning sickness drove home the fact that Sophia was, right this very moment, carrying a little piece of him around inside of her. It seemed so surreal.

“What can I get for you?” he asked her. “How can I make you feel better?”

She shook her head. “You can’t, and... I’m fine.”

“Don’t pregnant women eat a lot of crackers?” he asked.

She smiled, but it was wan. “Crackers would be good. For later. Right now, I’m... But, thank you.”

And there they sat.

Dave broke the silence. “It was really great sex,” he said. “I feel good about the fact that it was really, really great sex. I don’t know why I should feel so good about that, but I do.”

Sophia laughed. “You’re not going to be one of those guys who parades me around going look what I did, are you?” Her laughter faded, and she added, “I mean, depending on whether or not we decide to stay together.”

Ah, yes. That. Also depending upon whether or not Dave survived these next few days or even weeks.

Dear God. He’d been resolute before, but now it was beyond imperative to keep Sophia safe. If he’d been afraid that she was a target as his so-called fiancée, she was now, literally, twice the target.

He took a deep breath. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s important that you don’t tell anyone about... the baby.”

He felt himself laugh as he said the word, even as he felt a rush of tears to his eyes. Everything he was feeling, including the hurt from finding out that she’d wanted him only because she thought he was normal, i.e., boring—it was all tangled up in a ball of chaos and confusion, with one fact front and center: that there were people out there looking for him, who wanted him to suffer before they ended his life.

And he could not—he would not—let them get anywhere near Sophia and their child.

“God, I want this,” he whispered. “So much. But I don’t know how—”

Sophia kissed him.

She kissed him the way she always did—with a sweetness that turned almost instantly to fire. Which was probably his fault. He couldn’t get enough of her and could never keep himself from revving it up, instantly, whether they were out in public or in the privacy of a hotel room.

She pulled back, breathless. “Please don’t sleep on the couch.”

Dave reached to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, as he continued to fight the urge to cry. “I don’t know,” he said. “Lumpy couch versus king-sized bed. Alone versus the woman of my dreams in my arms...” He put his hand on her stomach. “With our baby right here, handily nearby—in case I need to start her in utero calculus classes.”

Sophia laughed. “Calculus. At seven and a half weeks? I don’t think she has more than a brain stem yet, although I could be wrong.” She started to cry again. “Dave, I’m so sorry about—”

“Hey, it’s all right,” he said, pulling her close and kissing her. His throat felt unnaturally tight. “She’ll grow a real brain. Give her time.”

“How can you be so okay with all of this?” she asked.

He sighed. “Because life’s not perfect, Soph. You do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt. And my hand is pretty freaking great. I’ve loved you for forever, and now you’re having my baby. God, I finally understand that terrible, terrible song, because right now I just want to sing it to you. I won’t, though, because, you know. Like I said, I love you, and don’t want to subject you to that torture.”

She laughed, but it didn’t slow her tears.

“There’s also a part of me,” Dave continued, “that’s too scared to sing. It’s that part of me that’s trying to figure out how I’m going to protect you—and our incredible, brilliant, beautiful baby. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I am. And I’m sorry if that sounds too James Bond, but it’s only temporary, okay? I’m going to take care of this problem, and then I’m going to come back, and I’m going to marry you, and I’m going to retire from Troubleshooters and get a job in an auto repair shop, only fixing dents in left front fenders of Subarus—or something equally boring.”

“Dave, I don’t want you to—”

“Shhh,” he told her, silencing her with a kiss. “That’s for the future, okay? Right now, let’s just show our baby howmuch her daddy loves her mommy.”

And with that, Dave kissed her again—because when he was kissing Sophia, he allowed himself to believe not only that she loved him, but that everything was going to work out. And that they were going to live, perhaps not happily, but contentedly ever after—which absolutely was good enough for him.