The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Sawyer let her sleep. At some point in his training he’d been lectured about head wounds and concussion protocols, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open and between her full stomach and the gentle swaying of the ship and the knowledge that she had a name—Zoe, he reminded himself; Zoe had a name—she must have felt safe enough to roll back up in her blanket burrito and drift into the deepest sleep he’d ever seen.

He hated her for it.

Sawyer couldn’t remember the last time he had slept—had dreamed. Sleep with one eye open was a cliché but it was also a way of life. And his way of life was killing him. Probably sooner than he hoped.

So he sat on the world’s most uncomfortable chair and watched her sleep because he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her out of his sight, and he didn’t dare stop to wonder why.

After a while, there was a knock on the door and Sawyer bolted across the suite before the sound could wake her.

Peering through the fish-eye lens he saw a man dressed in the uniform of the Shimmering Sea. He looked like he belonged, but the good ones always did, and Sawyer wasn’t in the mood to take chances. The man was raising a fist to knock again when Sawyer opened the door and realized a little too late that he still had a gun in his hand.

“Shi— Hi.” He leaned against the door. Nothing to see here. Nope. Just your regular honeymoon dude who is worn out from all the enthusiastic boat and airplane sex.

“Mr. Michaelson?” the man asked like he didn’t already know the answer.

“Yes.”

“I’m Ramon, your butler. I have your luggage, sir. My apologies that it wasn’t waiting in your room, but we were told you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, storm messed up our flights,” Sawyer said easily because that’s what happens when your whole life was a lie. Eventually, it’s the truth that you can’t tell with a straight face.

“So sorry about the confusion, sir. Shall I bring it in and unpack?”

“What?” These people unpack for you? “No. I mean, my . . . uh . . . wife is sleeping.”

He glanced back at Zoe: bare foot sticking out from under the blankets, hair fanned around her. She looked well and truly debauched and a knowing grin spread across Ramon’s face. “Yes, sir.”

Sawyer wanted to defend Zoe’s honor, but he didn’t know why. And the cover meant letting Ramon think it. If anything, the cover meant raising an eyebrow in a way that said yeah, I’m a stud but don’t make me knock your teeth out for leering at my woman.

But Sawyer didn’t have a woman—and he never would—so he just said, “I’ll take those bags now.”

He never moved away from the door. He never took his eyes off the man. And it wasn’t until the corridor was empty that he realized he’d clicked off the Glock’s safety.

“Who was that and did they want to kill me?” Zoe’s voice was soft from sleep and the words sounded like they were coming from a mile away, but he could see her face in ten million reflective surfaces because, evidently, honeymooners on the Shimmering Sea are really into mirrors. Kinky bastards. The whole room looked like the inside of a disco ball.

She raised her arms and stretched. Hair smushed. Cheeks red. She’d gotten hot, he realized, but that must have come as a relief after twelve hours of freezing.

“So are they going to kill me now or did you talk them into coming back to kill me later?”

If it hadn’t been for all the damn mirrors he wouldn’t have even known he was smiling—wouldn’t have known to stop it.

“No.” He rolled the massive suitcases into the room. “It was the butler.”

“We have a butler!” She shot upright but swayed a little.

“Hey.” He bolted toward the bed.

“Head rush,” she said. “I’m fine.” And he believed her because she was already clawing her way out of the blankets and heading toward the suitcases.

“Darn it. They’re locked,” she said, like that was that—no force on earth can possibly bust through the locks that come standard on overpriced luggage. Then she remembered. “Wait! You’re a spy! You can pick locks! Ooh!” She was already pushing the smaller of the two bags in his direction.

“Twelve hours I keep you alive and the thing you’re impressed by is that I might be able to get into those suitcases?” he complained but reached for his kit.

“First, I’m pretty sure that we kept each other alive. I was very instrumental in plans B, C, and D-point-one. Second, are you saying you can’t get into these suitcases? Because—”

The first bag was already opening with a pop.

“Ooh! Excellent.” She dropped onto the floor—onto her knees. “You know, you’re more helpful than you look.” She was staring up at him with her bed-mussed hair, and it took him three full seconds to remember that he should have been insulted.

“This is what you consider helpful?”

But she was too busy throwing clothes across the bed to answer. Pants and blazers and ties. She was like a tiny tornado ripping through a department store that caters to dudes who have a regular caddy at the club.

“Shoot. This one’s yours.” She reached for the other, even larger, suitcase and—with otherworldly strength—pushed it in his direction. “Do me. Do me.”

He audibly groaned. “You need to—”

“What?” she asked, looking way too innocent for a woman who was currently eye level with his crotch.

“Never mind,” he said, and two seconds later, the lock sprang open.

What followed was a whirlwind of silks and cashmeres and satin. A whole lot of satin. He tried very, very pointedly not to look at the satin. But it was hard, what with the low sounds of pleasure that were coming from the back of her throat. “Ohhhh. Yes . . . Oh, that feels so good. Oh, look!”

“I’m not looking!” he said a little too quickly.

“Flats!” She was pulling a pair of shoes to her chest and rocking them like a baby.

“Are they your size?”

“I don’t care. They’ll fit me. I’ll make them fit me.” She closed her eyes. “I love being Mrs. Michaelson.”

He had to admit, as covers went, he’d had worse. They were warm and dry and had plenty of food and water. And they were technically moving. For now. Plus, he hated to admit it, but there’s a limit to what the human body can take. Every operative knows that fatigue doesn’t just make you slow, it makes you sloppy. And in Sawyer’s world, sloppy almost always makes you dead.

Zoe must have read his mind because she eyed him. “Did you sleep?”

He bit back a laugh. “Wasn’t sleepy.”

Maybe he was losing his touch—or maybe she was just getting to know him—because she arched an eyebrow. “Liar.”

She gave him a mocking side-eye glance, and, damn, she looked better. Alive. Skin flushed and eyes bright. And a part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that she should have looked more like Alex now that she wasn’t dead on her feet, but somehow, she looked even less like her sister.

Alex always looked like she was in on a secret. But Zoe looked like she was in on a joke—like at any moment she was going to say knock, knock and the whole world was going to lean close enough to whisper who’s there?

He’d never known anyone so alive, and he suddenly felt it like a weight in his chest—like he’d never be able to forgive himself if he couldn’t keep her that way.

“Do you mind if I take the first shower?” Zoe was already grabbing a tiny green bottle of mineral water from the tiny fridge and pulling together an armful of Mrs. Michaelson’s tiny clothing.

“Knock yourself out,” Sawyer said. A moment later, the door clicked shut and the water turned on and he just stood there, trying not to think about a wet, naked Zoe on the other side of the wall. It might not have been so bad if he hadn’t noticed the tuxedo staring back at him from the pile of clothes, taunting him, like it was waiting for 007 to come and claim it.

“Fuck James Bond,” Sawyer said to no one but ten thousand versions of his own reflection. He wasn’t going to be that kind of spy—that kind of man. He wasn’t going to seduce Zoe—use Zoe. Not if his life depended on it.

But then a sound echoed through the quiet room. A crash. Breaking glass.

And a woman’s scream.

A moment later, he was vaulting over the bed and bursting into the bathroom only to be hit by a cloud of steam. Zoe was just a blonde blur in the haze.

“What—” he started, but as he stepped toward her, he heard a crunch and looked down. The floor was wet and covered with shards of green glass. The bottle broke, his mind filled in, but Zoe looked like she didn’t hear a thing, see a thing, as she stood there, staring at a mirror that was completely fogged over.

Oh, and she was naked.

Well, not precisely naked. Just mostly naked. She was seventy-five to eighty percent naked, a part of his brain calculated. But she was alive. And even though a part of him realized he could uncock the gun, another part of him knew that the thing that had made Zoe cry out was still in there. And Sawyer was going to kill it.

“What happened?” He expected her to grab a towel—maybe one of the plush robes hanging by the shower doors—but she just stood there in her bra and panties, staring at that fog-covered mirror. “Zoe—”

“I don’t know,” she said—to him or to her own reflection, he wasn’t really sure.

“You don’t know what?”

He turned off the shower and the room was suddenly too quiet—the air too clear—and he saw what Zoe would be seeing for hours—days. Maybe the rest of her life.

“I don’t know how I got them.”

She tentatively reached up to touch the scar that ran in a line between her breasts. There were others too. Along her ribs. Down her back, skirting along the edge of her bra. She probably hadn’t seen that one, but he could. He wanted to reach out and trace it, smooth it away with his fingers, but he was too afraid to move—to speak. You shouldn’t wake a sleepwalker, they always said, but no one ever talks about what to do when you catch someone having a nightmare while wide awake.

“I don’t remember. Doesn’t this seem like the kind of thing . . . I don’t remember!” she screamed, but she wasn’t scared—she was furious. At her body and her mind. “I—”

“Stop!” he blurted when she started to move, and she froze, embarrassed. It was like she suddenly realized that she was seventy-six percent naked in front of a man who was more or less a stranger.

“I—”

“Don’t move,” he said, softer now, as he grabbed a robe and threw it over her shoulders. Then he scooped her up into his arms. They were eye to eye in the steamy room and her body was like a coil that was wound way too tight. He was afraid she was going to snap. “Broken bottle. Bare feet.”

So she didn’t fight him as he carried her into the bedroom and sat her gently on the bed. She looked a little nervous, though, as if suddenly worried that being carried in a bridal suite might make them married in truth.

“Can’t have you injuring yourself again.” It was meant to be a joke. It was meant to make her smile. And she did, but the light didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’d only slow you down.”

“That’d be a shame.” Then he went to clean up the glass because he’d rather throw his favorite gun overboard than call housekeeping, but when he was finished, he couldn’t decide if he was supposed to sit beside her or kneel in front of her or just get the hell out and let her be alone.

“I . . . I don’t remember.” She was still staring into those blasted mirrors like maybe the story was written on her skin and if she just looked hard enough, she might figure out how to read it. “I keep thinking I’m going to see something or hear something and it’s all going to come back, but . . . They scared me. I turned around and saw something, and . . . My own skin scared me.” She looked up at him. Her voice cracked. “And nothing came back.”

“Hey. It will.” He’d spent a lot of time learning how to kill, but right then he needed to know how to soothe and so he just sat there, afraid to touch her. He didn’t want to be the thing that made her shatter.

She looked down and suddenly realized that the robe was gaping, scars peeking through.

“Oh.” She jumped to her feet and tried to pull the robe closed.

“No. Don’t.” He didn’t mean to stand—to reach out—but he was already grabbing the edges of that robe and holding them tight, wrapping her up in a cocoon of soft cotton and not letting her move an inch until he’d told her, “Something tried like hell to kill you, lady. And you survived it.” He turned her to face the largest mirror—her back to his front—as he looked over her shoulder and into her eyes. “You won. And nothing on this earth is sexier than a woman who told death to fuck off.”

She closed her eyes, like she didn’t just need to hear the words—she needed to absorb them through her skin and into her bloodstream, like that was the fastest way for them to reach her heart.

But when she finally opened her eyes, her gaze met his in the mirror. “Does my sister . . . Does Alex have . . .”

He shook his head and didn’t make her finish. “Alex has the kind of scars you can’t see.”