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Chapter 50 - Paper Dolls
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2025-08-01 16:04:00Sophia
The second I open the door to my apartment, I know something is wrong.
Nothing’s broken. Nothing’s missing. But the air is different.
Heavier.
Like someone else has been breathing it.
I step inside cautiously, heels clicking softly against the hardwood floor.
At first glance, nothing seems out of place. But the longer I stare, the more unsettling
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Undercover Hearts Chapter 96 – Small Kindnesses
SophiaPreston’s text comes in while I’m curled up on Jamie’s couch, my laptop open but abandoned, a mug of tea cooling on the coffee table beside me.How do you feel about a weekend away? Just us. Somewhere quiet.The little bubble of words sits on the screen like an invitation to breathe. A weekend away sounds wonderful. No whispered rumors circling back through Platinum. No dodging Marcus’s gaze in crowded lobbies. No pretending I don’t notice the way my pulse misbehaves whenever he’s near.Just Preston. Solid, uncomplicated Preston, who remembers my coffee order and laughs at my bad puns and never makes me feel like I’m playing a part.I type back before I can talk myself out of it.Yes. That sounds perfect. Thank you.The truth is, it does. Or it should.By the time we’re on the road Friday evening, Preston has stocked his car with my favorite snacks. Chocolate-covered almonds, sour gummy worms and two flavors of obscure sparkling water I don’t even remember mentioning liking.
Undercover Hearts Chapter 95 – Plausible Lies
ElenaThe secret to lying well is to tell the truth. Or, at least, something that looks close enough to it that no one bothers to question the shine.Which is why I let the words fall the way I do. Not harsh, not cutting. Just casual, like a sigh wrapped in silk.“Marcus?” I say to Yvette, one of our more talkative vendors, while we stand by the refreshment table after a midweek Platinum event. “Oh, he’s brilliant. Smart, steady. But between you and me, he has a temper. You know the type. Fiery, loyal, the kind of man who doesn’t let go of a grudge.”Yvette’s eyebrows lift, intrigued. Exactly the response I wanted. Curiosity is contagious, and gossip spreads faster than champagne at one of these mixers.I add the finishing touch, an artful wince, softened with a quick laugh. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a wonderful partner to have in this business. Just… complicated. But aren’t the best men always the complicated ones?”I watch it land. Not heavy enough to bruise, but sharp enough to lin
Undercover Hearts Chapter 94 – Low Contact
MarcusSilence is a funny thing. You think you want it, until you’re staring it in the face and it’s not peace at all. It’s absence. It’s unanswered texts and calls that don’t come. It’s Sophia retreating into a version of herself I can’t reach.I tell myself it’s fine. I tell myself people get busy, that she has a life outside the orbit of mine, that not hearing from her for a day isn’t a tragedy. But I don’t believe myself. Not really.It’s not that I expect her to report in. She’s not a rogue agent, she’s a woman I’m attracted to. But the distance feels deliberate, like a door quietly being closed, and I can’t stop thinking about the coffee invite I sent. About the way she never replied.It shouldn’t matter this much. It still does.The Bureau would love this, if they knew. Gillespie in particular. She’s repeatedly made it clear I should keep things “professional.” Like I don’t know that already. Like I had a choice in the way my pulse speeds up and my heart somersaults every time
Undercover Hearts Chapter 93 — Planting Doubt
SophiaThere are small ways the world tells you to be afraid, and then there are Platinum-sized ways. Today’s is the kind that arrives folded into a name card, like a polite weapon slid across a linen tablecloth.I’m at a Platinum “client appreciation” luncheon. One of those events that smells like petit fours and suppressed panic. Elena organized it, which is the reason the whole room is an exercise in polished menace. She throws charm the way other people throw glitter, but the glitter with her always has a weight to it. I tell myself I’m here because it’s research.I’m hovering by the canapé table because the lobster bites are strategically located next to the prawn skewers, and because watching people being casually affluent is fascinating. Preston is here, shaking hands with a man whose smile could fund three start-ups. Marcus is across the room, in his element, talking in low, measured sentences that make the people surrounding him lean in like they are about to receive scrip
Undercover Hearts Chapter 92 — Split Screen
SophiaBrunch at Jamie’s is one of those small domestic miracles that somehow survives the chaos of our lives.Too many pillows, a phone that only plays songs you can whistle to, and the smell of something buttered and suspiciously good coming from his tiny stove.Today it’s fluffy blueberry pancakes, the kind that fold in on themselves like tiny, happy sighs. He flips them with the theatrical precision of someone who’s been watched performing this exact motion a hundred times and knows precisely when the applause will come.“You’re here,” he says the moment I sit down, syrup already making a small, reckless arc from the decanter, “But you’re not here.”It’s soft, not a theatrical ambush. Jamie is good at being gentle without making it sound like pity. He leans on the counter, chin in hand, and squints like he’s trying to read me in the lazy light of Saturday.“Do you mean emotionally or physically?” I ask, because sarcasm is a reflex and I haven’t had my coffee yet.“Both,” he says,
Undercover Hearts Chapter 91 — Through Glass
MarcusThere are two kinds of discoveries. The neat, satisfying kind that makes your spine buzz with the pleasure of solving a puzzle, and the kind that drops like a stone into your gut. The Marrin–Bainbridge overlap is both.I find it in a dusty batch of corporate calendars. An innocuous scan someone misfiled. Marrin met a Bainbridge executive during the exact three-day gap in Pemberton’s financial records. Not before, not after, right in the place we could never account for. It’s the sort of tiny, careful detail that turns coincidence into pattern.I call Gillespie because that’s what you do when you find a hot thread and want to temper the impulse to yank at it until the whole thing unravels. She answers on the second ring, all clipped and efficient.“Goddammit Marcus! How many ways do you need me to tell you to drop this?” she asks furiously before I finish explaining. “Rodriguez doesn’t want heat on Bainbridge yet! You pushing here pulls fire to the whole op.”“Because you think
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