Page 15 of The Honeymoon Hack
“There’s always a choice.”
“Tell my mother that and get back to me on it.”
He chuckled, the sound not enough to relax me. Although he obviously understood my point. “We’ll make it work, Bug. We always do.”
Chapter 6
Brie
The tiny jewelrystore bag weighed me down as I pushed open my apartment door. Scarlett and Malcolm followed with the rest of our purchases—five shopping bags that contained my entire cover identity as Mrs. Brie Stone, network specialist and newlywed.
“Stop overthinking,” Scarlett said as she slipped out of her shoes. “I can practically hear your brain spiraling from here.”
She was right. I’d been counting doors and footsteps since we’d entered the building. Eighteen steps from the elevator to the first door. Twenty-five steps to my door. Numbers made sense. Numbers didn’t require me to pretend to be married to my best friend.
“I wasn’t—” I started, then gave up. “Fine. But this is a perfectly normal response to being thrown into fieldwork with four hours’ notice.”
Malcolm kicked off his own shoes and followed Scarlett down the short hallway. “For what it’s worth, you’re handling it better than I expected. No pacing yet.”
“Give me five minutes,” I muttered, following them toward my bedroom.
“Suitcase?” Scarlett dropped the bags she’d been carrying onto my bed, looking at the scattered items I’d left behind when they picked me up.
“Right.” I headed for the spare bedroom, where I kept the things I never needed, and quickly returned.
“Toiletries, chargers, adapters,” Scarlett said, already organizing the items on my bed into categories. Then she headed for my closet, grabbing things willy-nilly. Honestly, she knew exactly what she was doing. “You’ll need comfortable shoes for walking the facility, sandals for the resort areas…”
“She had us fully packed last night.” Malcolm positioned himself in my big comfy reading chair, apparently designated as moral support while Scarlett handled logistics. “I’m looking forward to staying at the resort while you do all the hard work.”
“We’re her backup, Malcolm.” Scarlett pulled a black dress out of my closet—something she’d bought me for my birthday a couple of years ago. Which I’d never worn. “This will work for any formal dinners?—”
“No way.” I swiped it from her hands, tossing it toward the laundry hamper in the closet. “Network specialists don’t pack little black dresses for work trips.” I grabbed my favorite graphic T-shirt from my dresser—the one with a math joke on it—and a comfortable pair of jeans. “These are what Brie Stone would wear. Comfort over style. Function over form.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. The same one Mum and Emmett used. This particular brow raise meant:Don’t test me, little sister.“You’ll need to go along with things while you’re there. Don’t try to be invisible—that will draw more attention. Be pleasant but unremarkable. Competent but not exceptional.”
“Everyone working at Mnemis will be exceptional.” It was the most secure data center in the world. How could their employees be anythingbutexceptional?
“Calibrate to whatever’s around you,” she said. “Just don’t be the smartest person in the room.”
Malcolm chuckled. “She probably will be, though.”
“So long as no one realizes it.” Scarlett took the T-shirt I was holding, folded it far better than I could, and placed it on top of the others. “Make friends and allies—people you can leverage.”
“Making friends isn’t my strong suit.” Computers made sense. People were complicated variables with unpredictable outputs.
Scarlett kept talking. “You observe, you piece together patterns—something you do naturally—and you find the intel we need. But you don’t show off. You don’t correct people when they’re wrong unless it directly impacts your mission. You become background noise while your brain does what it does best.”
“Analyze everything,” I said, “but keep it quiet.”
“Exactly.” She pulled out a pair of comfortable flats. “Think of it like running a diagnostic program in the background while maintaining a simple user interface up front.”
Thatmade sense. If something went wrong in a diagnostic, I’d dig into the details and figure out what was going on. If it simply ran, I’d barely notice what it had done.
“And when in doubt…” She reached into one of the shopping bags, pulling out something black and lacy. “Fall back on the honeymooner cover.”
The negligee dangled from her fingers, all stretchy lace and completely see-through. My face went hot—actually hot, like someone had redirected all my blood flow to my face.
“I was hoping the lace was for you,” Malcolm said with a smirk.
