Elizabeth Bevarly - Overnight Male

“Hey, I work for an information-gathering arm of the U.S. government,” he told her with clearly affected self-importance. “It’s my job to make brilliant deductions.”

She waved off his concern quite literally. “Don’t worry about it. I’m highly adaptable. I can match my hours of operation to yours with no problem.”

He eyed her thoughtfully. “Something about the way you said that indicates you’d rather not.”

This time Lila shrugged off his concern literally. “I prefer to work at night—big surprise—but when the assignment calls for daytime activity, I don’t have a problem with it.”

“You’re just not as happy working during the day.”

“Happiness isn’t a word that appears in my job description,” she told him.

“But you’d still be happier if this was one of those nighttime infiltration things, wouldn’t you?”

There was no reason to deny it, so Lila relented. “Yeah. I’d be happier if it were. But—”

“Why?” he interrupted before she could finish.

She hesitated before replying, just long enough to let him know she resented his interruption. Finally, though, she said, “Because I work better at night.”

“I beg to differ,” he contradicted.

Lila gaped at him. She wasn’t used to people contradicting her, especially as immediately and absolutely as Joel just had.

He obviously understood the reason for her silence, because he told her, “I’ve studied the particulars of every assignment you’ve carried out for OPUS, Lila, and statistically speaking, you’re always very effective regardless of what you’re doing or when you’re doing it.”

A thrill of something warm and fluid purled through her when he addressed her by her first name. She told herself she should be offended at the familiarity and his lack of protocol. Then again, she’d only a short time ago been giving herself permission to drop protocol until they arrived in Cincinnati, and she herself had been thinking of him not as Virtuoso, but as Joel. Besides, she kind of liked the way her name sounded when it was spoken in that deep, velvety baritone.

Then the essence of what he’d told her finally gelled. “You’ve read over every one of my assignments?” she asked incredulously. She hadn’t kept track, but considering the years she’d put in with OPUS, the total number must be staggering. And God knew how many pages were devoted to each.

“Once I knew we’d be working together, I needed to familiarize myself with you,” he said. Immediately he corrected himself, “I mean…with your methods. How else was I going to do that if not by reading about your standard M.O. when you work?”

“You could have learned about my standard M.O. by looking at a handful of my most high-profile assignments. Then you could have looked at my personnel file for anything else you wanted to know.”

He schooled his features into what Lila supposed was meant to be a bland expression. But it was in no way convincing. Her sarcasm of a moment ago had been warranted—he really wasn’t equipped to be working out in the field. What the hell was OPUS thinking, letting him tag along?

“Your personnel file,” he said, “is off-limits to everyone except a few people who are a hell of a lot higher up the ladder than me.”

Lila couldn’t help the derisive chuckle that escaped her at that. “Right. And God knows they never leak any information about me to anyone else in the organization. I mean that whole rumor about me having tried to murder the Big Guy must have started with the lunchroom ladies in the OPUS cafeteria.” She sighed and lifted a hand to rub her forehead in an effort to relieve a fast-approaching headache. “Look, um, Virtuoso, don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot.”

“I’m not doing—”

“Virtuoso,” she said again.

“Joel,” he corrected her. “Please call me Joel. I know it’s not protocol, but we’re not in Cincinnati yet, and I feel like an idiot whenever someone uses my code name. It just seems like such a Hollywood affectation.”

“Is that why you don’t call me by my code name?” she asked, trying to change the subject. And also wanting to know why he called her Lila when, professionally speaking, he shouldn’t.

He grinned. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

Although she noticed he didn’t answer her question, she let it go. “Then don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot,” she repeated.

“I’m not.”

She met his gaze levelly. “Don’t pretend you didn’t read over my personnel file, too. It makes perfect sense that they would give it to you. Even if they didn’t give me yours.”

She told herself she did not sound petulant when she uttered that last comment. The reason she hadn’t been given any more information about Joel than the essentials of name, rank and serial number—at least, technically speaking—was that she already knew the most important thing about him: That he’d never been out in the field. And also because—dammit—he was the one who would be in charge of the operation, feeding her whatever information she needed as she needed to know it. Clearly, anything personal about him was nothing she needed to know. At least, the higher-ups at OPUS didn’t think so. Nor did Joel, evidently, because he certainly wasn’t talking.

And why that bothered her so much, Lila would just as soon not ask herself.

She continued, “I’m sure you know every intimate detail of my background and personal life. At least, the parts that OPUS knows.” Which, granted, was pretty much everything, she had to concede. But there was no reason Joel couldn’t think she had one or two secrets she was keeping to herself.

He studied her in silence for a moment longer, as if he were going to continue the charade. Finally, though, he admitted, “Okay, I know everything OPUS knows about you. But you don’t strike me as the sort of woman who would worry about other people discovering all the skeletons in her closet.”

She chuckled at that, too, though with genuine good humor this time. “Ah, no,” she admitted freely. “The skeletons in my closet got tired of the crowded conditions and made their break a long time ago. There’s not much left in there to discover.” Quickly, before he had a chance to comment on that, she added, “Still, you get to know everything about me, and I know almost nothing about you. So much for our partner ship.”

She emphasized the first half of the word deliberately, hoping to goad him. Goading people had always helped Lila keep them at a distance, which, she told herself, was the only reason she was trying to goad Joel. To drive the wedge between them a little deeper. It wasn’t because she was hoping it would present a challenge that made him offer up some snippets about himself, too.

He eyed her in silence for a moment, long enough to let her know he understood exactly what she was doing. Then he asked, “What do you want to know about me?”

She arched her eyebrows in genuine surprise. If OPUS hadn’t given her information about Joel, then she wasn’t supposed to have it. Anything he might tell her about himself that she wasn’t already privy to would be in violation of the organization’s rules. Not a huge violation, especially if he only told her things like how he’d come in third in the fifthgrade spelling bee or how his favorite food was Mallomars. It was still a violation. And it surprised Lila that he would overstep the rules by even that much. Maybe archivists played by their own rules, but their rules weren’t generally in violation of OPUS’s. Joel especially seemed like the type of guy who would abide by regulation.

In spite of that, she said, “Where did you grow up?”

“Falls Church, Virginia,” he told her readily.