Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
My brain knew he couldn’t see me, but my body didn’t. I stared into those frozen eyes and a wave of heat broke over my face and rippled down through my body. My lungs ached, but I didn’t dare breathe. I wasn’t half a mile away, anymore. I was there, right next to him, close enough to touch. I could feel what he felt: the rain hitting my scalp, the wind whipping across my cheeks. I could feel the heat of his body, we were so close. He could just reach out and grab me, one big hand on the back of my neck, slamming me against the huge, warm wall of his chest, panting into his pec. Then a nudge with his knuckles under my chin, gently tipping my head back….
I swallowed. God, he had the face of a king, like you’d carve him out of freakin’ marble. That elegant nose and those cheekbones, balancing that strong jaw just enough. Powerful. Commanding. Gorgeous.
He’d lean down, those lips descending towards mine—
“We gotta go,” said a voice in my ear.
I’d lost all awareness of the room I was in. My soul was down there in the rain with Konstantin and as I looked up from the camera, it had to rubber-band all the way back in. I rocked unsteadily on my stool, blinking behind my glasses, my face turning scarlet at what I’d been imagining. “…what?” I croaked.
Calahan was standing next to me. “They want everyone back at the office,” he said.
Sam Calahan is my best friend, and my opposite. I’m small and the way I hold myself makes me look even smaller; he’s a hulking beast of a man. I’m just a surveillance specialist; he’s a bona fide field agent with a whole slew of high profile cases under his belt. And where I don’t even run in the hallways, Calahan breaks the rules a lot. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s been one reprimand away from getting fired. We work well together. He doesn’t mind me being quiet and weird and I do my best to reign him in so he can keep his job.
He’s always sort of rumpled, like he’s been up all night, but he manages to make it look good: tousled black hair, a stubbled jaw he rubs when he’s thinking and a worn suit that fits that hard body just right. Hell, he’s hot. There were times, early on, when I was yelling at him that no, he really shouldn’t defy orders and run off to Mexico to single-handedly chase down a suspect, that he’d narrow his eyes and sort of smolder down at me and I’d swallow and—
And then he’d look away and nothing would ever happen. And then one night, after too many tequilas, he told me the story of the woman he lost. Her death shattered him: he’s broken in a way I don’t know how to fix and it breaks my heart because if ever someone deserved to be happy, it’s Calahan. Since that night, we’ve settled into friends and that works.
I put my eye back to the camera’s viewfinder. “In a minute,” I murmured. Konstantin had turned away again, still talking to the other guy. I was praying for a shot of something incriminating: an envelope of cash changing hands, a crate of guns. But I knew it was a long shot. You’re too damn smart, aren’t you?
“Now,” said Calahan. “It’s Carrie. She says it’s an emergency.”
I looked up, startled, and then scrambled to pack away my gear. Carrie Blake was the head of the entire New York office of the FBI. Taking down Konstantin was her number one priority, so for her to pull us from surveillance, something huge must have happened.
As we left, I took one last look over my shoulder. Without my zoom lens, Konstantin was just a dot in the distance, but I still couldn’t tear my eyes away. It’s like an aura he has: he sucks you in. Everyone knows him, everyone talks about him. He dominates any room he walks into.
And me? I’m the perfect person to watch him. No one notices me.
My name is Hailey Akers, and I’m the closest to invisible a person can be.
* * *
Carrie Blake is in her fifties with long, gray-blonde hair. When she wears it down, it gives her a kindly, Earth-mother look. Right now, though, she had it pulled back into a ferociously tight ponytail and her eyes were bright with gleeful excitement. “Who can tell me who this is?” she asked, bringing a photo up on the conference room’s big screen.
Calahan and I looked up at the screen... and my hand shot up into the air. Then I remembered this isn’t school and flushed and tried to make it look as if I’d just been pushing my glasses up my nose. “Um, Christina Rogan, ma’am. Konstantin’s girlfriend.” They’d been together about four months, now. She was beautiful, with big blue eyes and glossy, sleek black hair, but I didn’t really like her.