Chapter 6 - Watching

Marcus

I'm pretending to review client files while I'm actually watching Sophia Sterling through my office window as she stands on the sidewalk below, having what appears to be an increasingly animated phone conversation.

She's been down there for twenty minutes now, and I've watched her go through what looks like the five stages of grief. First denial. Shaking her head repeatedly. Then anger. I swear I saw her mouth the word "fuck" loud enough that a woman with a stroller gave her a dirty look. Bargaining came next, with lots of hand gestures that suggested she was trying to convince someone of something. Depression hit when she leaned against the building like the weight of the world had settled on her shoulders.

Now she's pacing, which I'm hoping means acceptance, but from what I’ve been able to gather about Sophia, it could just as easily mean she's planning something that's going to give me a headache.

"You're being creepy," Elena says from the doorway, not bothering to knock. It's a habit of hers that usually doesn't bother me, but today everything feels like sandpaper against my nerves.

"I'm being observant," I correct, not turning away from the window. "There's a difference."

"Is there?" She moves to stand beside me, following my gaze to where Sophia has stopped pacing and is now giving her phone the kind of look usually reserved for exes and parking tickets. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're stalking your fake client."

"She's not fake." The words come out sharper than I intended, and Elena raises an eyebrow.

"Right. She's just a perfectly normal tech heiress who happens to need a hundred-thousand-dollar matchmaking service to find someone to tolerate her sparkling personality."

I finally turn to look at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means she's playing you, Marcus. And you're so busy thinking with your-"

"Don't." I hold up a hand. "Don't finish that sentence."

Elena's expression softens slightly. "I'm trying to protect you. This woman shows up out of nowhere, lies about everything except her name, and suddenly you're asking her to dinner like some lovesick teenager. This isn't like you."

She's right, and that's what bothers me most. I've built my entire career on reading people. On seeing through their facades and finding the truth underneath. But with Sophia, every instinct I have is contradicting itself.

“Have you vetted her yet?” Elena asks, glancing at my computer screen with the casual invasion of privacy that comes from fifteen years of friendship.

"It's in progress,” I lie.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the answer you're getting."

Elena is quiet for a moment, and I can feel her studying my profile. "You haven't run it because you're afraid of what you'll find."

"I haven't run it because I'm trying to figure out what game she's playing first." I finally step away from the window, though I can still see Sophia in my peripheral vision. She's walking now, heading toward the subway entrance. "I need to understand her motivations before I do anything that might scare her off."

"And if she's just a normal client with normal problems?"

Then I'm investigating an innocent woman who trusted me enough to agree to dinner, and I'm exactly the kind of person who deserves to eat alone for the rest of his life.

"Then we move on to the next client," I say instead.

Elena doesn't buy it. She never does. "Marcus, I've known you since we were kids. I've seen you date supermodels and Fortune 500 CEOs and that senator's daughter who collected vintage cars. You've never once looked at any of them the way you look at Sophia Sterling."

"How do I look at her?"

"Like she's a puzzle you actually want to solve instead of a client you need to match."

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Probably another client inquiry, or maybe some paperwork Elena needs me to sign.

"I need to handle this," I say, pulling out the phone.

"No, you need to handle her." Elena nods toward the window. "Because whatever game she's playing, you're about to become a player instead of a referee. And in my experience, that's when people get hurt."

After she leaves, I stand there for a long moment, staring at my phone. Rodriguez has sent two more texts and a missed call notification. The Bureau wants answers, and I'm supposed to be the one providing them.

Instead, I'm thinking about the way Sophia's face changed when I asked her to dinner. The way she went from guarded to vulnerable in the span of a heartbeat, like I'd asked her something much more dangerous than whether she wanted to share a meal.

I'm thinking about the way she said "I don't think dinner is a good idea" like she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

I'm thinking about how she agreed anyway.

I pull out my phone and start researching restaurants. If Sophia Sterling wants to pick the place for our dinner, I want to be ready for whatever she chooses. Because something tells me that where she decides to take me is going to tell me more about who she really is than any FBI database ever could.

And despite every professional instinct screaming at me to keep digging into her life, to call Rodriguez, to treat this like the case it's supposed to be, I realize I'd rather learn about Sophia from Sophia.

Even if it means discovering I'm the one being played.