I, Spy? (Sophie Green Mysteries, No. 1) (Sophie Green Mystery)

cute.
    And because when people asked me what I did, I had an answer for them that wasn’t “student”, “shopgirl” or “office junior”, which was what had happened to everyone I went to school with. Apart from Jason Miles, who’s a pothead and went to prison three months ago for ramraiding the post office.
    And that’s about it. I suppose you could say there was the illusion of glamour. My job really wasn’t very glamorous, but people thought it was and I liked them to think I was too.
    My name is Sophie Green, and I live a very small life .
     
    My alarm clock went off and I knew I had to get a new job.
    The thing was, I’d been in this job two years and I’d been saying the same thing every day for the last…seven hundred and twenty-nine days.
    I checked my roster sheet. Sven was in today, Luca too. Excellent.
    Sven was the Norwegian. He was twenty-nine, from Stavanger on the west coast. He had hair that was like sunshine and eyes the colour of the Caribbean, and when he smiled, interesting things happened in the pit of my stomach, not to mention other places I’m not going to tell you about until I know you better.
    Luca was new. Ish. I mean, he sort of crept into the schedule, like maybe he had his hours changed. I don’t remember him getting trained up with all the other newbies. He’s sort of Mediterranean-looking, dark hair and eyes, and he always looked like he knew what I was thinking and found it very amusing. And he had a very sexy rolling Italian accent. And fantastic cheekbones.
    It was weird, because I don’t really go for Latin types. Ever since I went to Majorca with the girls and practically got stalked. I mean, don’t they have blondes over there? Generally I like men who are like me—blond, blue-eyed, tall and, erm, built.
    Therefore Sven fit the bill. He was very sweet, too. He smiled at me and asked in that lovely accent which always sounds so serious, “Are you all right?” The first time I wondered what the hell was wrong with me that he was asking so seriously. Then I realised this was his version of “Hi, how are you?”
    An honest answer would be, “Very warm now that you’re smiling at me,” or, “Slightly flustered because you’re leaning over to get to my bagtag machine.” But being a Brit chick, I always answered with a cool, “Yeah, I’m fine. How are you?”
    Who am I kidding? I looked like a beetroot whenever he talked to me.
    So when Paola, the little sweetheart, put me on a desk next to him I didn’t mind so much that I was checking in the biggest flight that day. Or even that it was full of skimpily dressed wannabes flying off to Ibiza. And DJs with their record bags that they always wanted to take as cabin baggage, but were always too heavy.
    Every single girl flirted with Sven. And Sven flirted right back.
    But then he would, right? If I was as brain-breakingly gorgeous as him, I’d flirt, too.
    “Hey,” came a voice, shattering through my reverie (me and Sven on a beach in Ibiza. He was practically naked and I was a lot thinner). “Do you have an end-bag?”
    I blinked up at Luca. “A what?”
    “End-bag.” He stretched over the desk to look. “It’s the little bag we put a special tag on so the guys downstairs know there are no more to come,” he explained helpfully, because how would I know that? I’d only been there two years.
    Ha ha. He was funny.
    “I don’t see one,” Luca added.
    “No one travels light to Ibiza. The guys all have record bags and the girls take twenty kilos of make-up. You want me to put my back out grabbing a huge end-bag?”
    He gave me a look I’m sure would have worked on a more susceptible woman. “Come on.” He was almost pouting. “You can find me a little end-bag. Just, maybe, fifteen kilos?”
    Ha ha. Fifteen kilos was a medium wheelie case. One of the hard shell ones. An end-bag had to be small, or there was no room for it behind the desk, and also it was easier to lob on the top of a dolly to drag out to the plane. Not to mention the heavy ones were hell on your back, and we weren’t insured to lift heavy things.
    “Okay,” I said, “but I’m not promising anything. But just because I like you.” I reached under the desk and pulled out a bag smaller than something I’d take clubbing. “I got you this, for Venice.”
    Luca gave me a look of adoration. “They always over-pack for Venice,” he said, taking the little thing with its huge end-bag tag. “You get me bags for Munich and