Single Lady Spy 01 - The End of Me

you for promotions, which you declined and retired, exactly at the eight-year mark. Sound right?"
    A memory attached itself to every single word he said: happy times, hard struggles, James courting me and getting me pregnant, me quitting for the sake of the baby. I entered the room, catching a look on his face in the far corner, where he sat drinking an amber liquid from a rock glass.
    His face was incredible looking—young, but incredible. I took a breath when I saw the cold look in his eyes and tensed face.
    He was military. Cold steel-blue eyes, square jaw, strong nose, long thick neck, arrogant look on his tanned face. He was military and there was no doubt. That meant I was screwed.
    He raised an eyebrow, "Well?"
    I nodded.
    He pointed at a chair, "Have a seat." It wasn't a question. I walked to the chair and sat on pins and needles.
    He sat back, taking me in. A grin crept across his lips. That arrogant smile was part of the kit when you started in CI. He was Intelligence. He was like me.
    "Do you have any idea what your husband has been doing the last ten years, while you were having kids and driving them to play dates?" His tone mocked me. I shook my head and looked down. He drank the last of the liquid and stood. He walked to the bar set up in the corner by the window and nodded his head, "James was good at keeping secrets. That was about his only redeeming quality."
    I was confused. I wanted to defend James and say he was an amazing father, incredible husband, and kind soul. But I assumed we both knew the truth of all of it.
    "James worked for Counter Intelligence. He failed at what he was asked to do. You will have to take it over. You have been named in the intel we have." I could hear the liquid pouring as he spoke the simplest, and yet most complicated words, I'd ever heard.
    I lifted my eyes, "Named? What?" It came out before I had a chance at articulating my confusion.
    He turned with two drinks. He placed one on the coffee table across from me and sat again, "You only had eight years service, when you went on maternity leave?"
    Did he just make finger quotations when he said maternity leave?
    He grinned at the look on my face, "So that makes me senior officer here. I think if you want to get snarky, you can add a Sir to the end of that question."
    I felt a homicidal look creep across my face.
    He shrugged it off, "Or Cooper. When you get to know me better, you can call me Coop." He winked. It was the first playful thing I had seen. It disturbed me, considering we just finished the conversation where he put the finger quotations up for maternity leave, like it wasn't a legit reason to quit.
    I reached for the glass. Holding it made me feel better, like it grounded me. I sipped the scotch. I hadn’t drunk anything but red wine since I'd joined the mommy brigade. They had rules and liking red wine was one of them. I always assumed it was because Dr. Oz had mentioned it a few times. Those women were nuts for Dr. Oz. He could say smearing your own spit across your forehead was a way to stop cancer and they'd do it.
    The scotch burned my throat, but I chugged the whole glass back like I was a sorority girl and placed it back down. He watched me with a half grin. The fact he was still a child himself, made me feel better. He hadn’t killed my husband, it had been an accident, and this was an act to try to bully me back to work. I could handle a whippersnapper like him.
    I cleared my throat and started, "I am flattered you think I have retained even an ounce of the training I had before. I haven’t, but thank you. That actually made my day. You ruined the rest of it, of course, by bouncing all my cheques and freezing everything. You've terrified me by making me think I had hackers trying to steal my life." I took a breath, "Sweet God. I don’t understand why on earth you would want someone like me to help you. I'm under-qualified, under-trained, completely in the dark about the technological advances you've made in the decade I've been off, and I'm really busy as a mom…"
    "Stop!" he cut me off. My mouth hung open as he shook his head, "Seriously—I didn’t sign up for this shit. It wasn’t us freezing accounts. Your name came up in Intel. I'm here to handle you, that’s all. I don’t want to hear about your bake sales and shit."
    I closed my mouth and watched his face change. The playful face and cocky grin were gone. He was back to being senior officer in the room. "James and the man you'll have