Faking It. Stefanie London
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“Apartment 601.” I exit with more speed than is necessary. As I march toward the front door, I dig the key out of my bag. “Home sweet home.”
The apartment is bigger than anywhere I’ve ever lived, including my family home that housed five of us. Even though we’re only six floors up, we have a lovely view of South Melbourne made even prettier by the buttery morning light. The apartment itself has been staged by someone who knows the fine line between style and comfort, and there’s a mix of textures—light, warm woods and soft grey fabric and faded gold metals—that make me feel instantly at ease. The neutral tones are brought to life with a few pops of colour, including a vibrant sunflower yellow chair and a canvas splashed with shades of teal and lavender.
“This’ll do,” Owen says as he walks in. Max follows with the trolley. “Not really my style, but it looks like we have money.”
No kidding. I spot a Herman Miller Eames chair in the corner of the room, and it looks like the real deal. Those things cost more than what I paid for my first car. I dated a guy once—very briefly—who owned one of those chairs. Talked about it like the damn thing was his child.
“I’ll get the next load of boxes,” Max says. “And I’ll make conversation with the concierge guy, see if I pick up anything interesting.”
Owen nods. “Good idea.”
The second the door swings shut behind Max, my body is alight with awareness. The tingling sensation of being watched is an itch beneath my skin. At one point, I’d craved this with all my being—a moment alone with Owen.
“We’ll have to make sure we don’t damage any of this furniture,” I say in a desperate attempt to keep my mind where it belongs—on work. “Budget won’t accommodate eight grand for a chair.”
“And how do you think we’re going to damage the furniture, huh?” Owen walks up beside me, and I feel his presence right down to my toes.
“Not like that.” I don’t need to spell out that sex isn’t part of playing man and wife for this job. Owen might be a larrikin, but he’s not an asshole. In fact, the one time he had the chance to take advantage of our situation—the time I asked him to—he declined due to “personal ethics” and I never quite got over the humiliation. Even thinking about it now makes my stomach churn. “But I do remember one young recruit who managed to break both a dining chair and a bed frame in one evening.”
“Harmless fun.” He slings an arm around my shoulders and I force myself not to lean into him. “It’s been a long time, Anderson. I missed you while I was in New York.”
I snort. “I didn’t think about you once.”
“Liar.” He laughs and his delicious scent fills my nostrils again. Damn it. How does he smell so freaking good? “You ready to take the bad guys down?”
“Absolutely.” This time my response is genuine. I love my job and I’m damn good at it. “They won’t even know what hit them.”
Owen
IT TAKES LESS than a day for us to argue about every little thing—our approach for gaining the trust of the people in the building, where to set up discreet surveillance...what flavour pizza we should get for dinner. She wanted Hawaiian. Gross. Pineapple does not belong on pizza.
We compromise and get Thai food instead.
“We should be talking to people already,” Hannah argues. Her dark hair started the day floating around her face, brushing the tops of her shoulders, but now it’s pulled back into a messy little knot. “You think they want to pay us for sitting around? That might be how things work in your cushy world, but we’re wasting taxpayers’ dollars right now.”
“Sorry, I was under the impression you were a detective senior constable, not the chief commissioner.” I spear a piece of duck and make sure I get some coconut rice on my fork, as well. Damn, it’s good. “And cushy, my ass. My job keeps me fit as a fiddle, and don’t think I didn’t notice you staring earlier.”
When some women blush, it’s like a delicate pink flush over their cheeks. Hannah’s blush goes everywhere—over her cheeks and nose, down her neck and under the edge of her simple black T-shirt. But my favourite bit is how it colours the tips of her ears.
“I have to stare. It’s not often I see a class-A idiot in the flesh,” she snaps.
The defensive comeback bounces right off me—I’ve been called worse. No-hoper. Slacker. Troublemaker. I saw my eleventh-grade science teacher in my first month of being a constable and her eyes almost popped out of her head. To say most people didn’t expect me to do much with my life is an understatement.
Have you done much with your life? Really?
I promptly ignore that inconvenient thought and file it away where it belongs: in the corner of my mind marked “shit not to think about.”
“You’ve got such a way with words, Anderson.”
“It’s Hannah, remember? You can’t mess that up.” Her cheeks return to their usual colour as she tucks into her Pad Thai. “Now, back to work. We’ve got to get out and talk to people.”
“Have you ever met a newlywed couple who wanted to become BFFs with their new neighbours the second they got married? No, they want to fuck like animals and not leave their apartment.”
She rolls her eyes. “You would think that. How many times have you been married?”
“Zero. But if I did get married, I wouldn’t make hanging out with the neighbours my first priority.” I reach for my Coke. “However, I do agree we can’t sit in here all night.”
“Then what?”
“We go for a romantic evening walk in the garden.”
She looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “A romantic walk?”
“It will give us a chance to scope out the property, look for anything out of the ordinary and find some surveillance points.”
“And then we can talk to anyone we come across?”
I sigh. “We don’t need to talk to them yet. It’s not a good idea to come across too eager.”
“Is this some weird guy logic?” She narrows her eyes. “Like needing to wait three weeks before you call a girl after a date?”
I raise a brow. “If he’s waiting three weeks, he’s not interested.”
She stabs at her dinner like she’s trying to make sure it’s dead. Either that, or she’s imagining it’s me. “I’m talking hypothetically.”
I would usually take the opportunity to stir her up some more, but for some reason I don’t want to talk about Anderson’s dating life. It makes me feel a little stabby myself, so I move the conversation on. “If we come on too strong, we might tip them off. We need to seem interesting, so they come to us.”
“And by ‘seem interesting’ what you really mean is ‘seem rich,’ right? We need to make ourselves a target.”
“Exactly. And it needs to be subtle. We can’t look like we’re trying to get anyone’s attention.”
She makes a sound of frustration that’s music to my ears. Winding her up is way too easy. “So we have to attract attention without looking like we want it, and we have to avoid talking to people so they want to talk to us? Doesn’t that seem a little counterintuitive?”
“No, it seems like the right way to do things. Trust me, I know how these guys work. Last time—”
“Yes,