Huxley sat up, looking pained by the effort. "That's okay," he groaned. "I'm heading upstairs. If you two would excuse me . . ." He clutched his stomach. "I think this is going to be a rough one."
Jordan watched as Huxley clung to the railing and dragged himself upstairs. When she heard a door shut, she turned back and saw that Nick had moved into the kitchen. She followed him and watched as he began opening cabinets, searching for something.
"I know Huxley. He has to have it somewhere," he muttered to himself. "Ah-got it." He shut the cabinet door and held a bottle out to Jordan.
Hand sanitizer.
"Don't say I never got you anything," he said.
Despite herself, Jordan smiled. "Thanks," she said, taking the bottle from him. She poured an extremely generous amount onto her hands and made a mental note to touch as little as possible inside the house.
Upstairs, she could hear the faint sounds of Huxley groaning. "Should we do something?" she asked Nick.
"I think he'd probably prefer to be alone right now."
She nodded. She said the words first, needing to get it out there. "He's not going to make it to the party tonight, is he?"
"No, he's not. And that's a shame, because I know how badly Huxley wanted this. But he's shivering, he looks terrible, and he can't stay out of the bathroom for more than twenty minutes."
Jordan felt bad for Huxley. Aside from his obvious physical discomfort, she knew how much he'd put into this investigation. But selfishly, she had other issues on her mind at that moment, like the fact that this had been her one chance to get her brother out of prison. "Does this mean we're scrapping the plan for tonight?"
Nick leaned against the counter opposite her, stretching out his tall, leanly muscular body. He wore a navy crewneck sweater, jeans, and a gun harness that made him appear even more dangerous than he had that first night in her store. She took note of his strong, angular jaw, which was once again dark and stubbled.
It wasn't the worst look she'd ever seen on a guy. She wouldn't go as far as to say she liked it or anything, but she supposed some women found this sort of overt . . . manliness attractive.
"We're not scrapping the plan," he said. "This may be our only chance to nail Eckhart. But this development with Huxley means we need to make certain adjustments."
"Such as?"
His green eyes held hers. "Looks like you've got yourself a new date this evening."
Balls.
"I had a feeling you were going to say that, Agent McCall."
He shook his head. "No more Agent McCall. From this point on, I'm Nick Stanton, a self-employed real estate investor," he said, referring to the cover story they'd planned to use with Huxley. "I own several multiunit apartment buildings on the north side of the city that I rent out mostly to college students and recent graduates. We met when I came into your store to buy a bottle of wine for my property manager, Ethan, who just got engaged to a girl named Becky, an advertising executive originally from Des Moines who used to live in one of my buildings. You helped me pick out the perfect bottle of wine, and I was so entranced that I didn't pay any attention to what I bought." He scratched his jaw, putting on a show of trying to remember. "What kind of wine was it again, sweetie? Something French I'd never heard of."
Jordan noticed that he was going off the script a little. "A gamay?"
Nick snapped his fingers. "A gamay-that's it."
"With Huxley it was a carménère from Chile. And he picked it out."
"Well, Huxley knows a lot more about wine than I do. Since I don't have time to learn, my character is going to be more of a novice." He grinned. "Your character finds this refreshing in contrast to all the stuffy wine snobs you usually meet."
"But my character probably won't emphasize that fact tonight, since most of those stuffy wine snobs will be at this party," she threw back.
The two of them looked over as Huxley stumbled his way into the living room and sank onto the couch.
"I overheard you talking. You'll take my place, then?" he asked Nick.
"It's our only option at this point."
Huxley shook his head dejectedly. "Three years working for the FBI and I've never had to take one sick day. Today of all days, this happens." He leaned back against the pillows and looked Nick over. "You're going to need a suit."
"I have several suits," Nick said, appearing offended.
Huxley did not seem impressed. "A real suit." He held up his hand, cutting off Nick's objection. "No offense, but Men's Wearhouse or whatever isn't going to cut it tonight. You want to blend, remember? Every person at the party will be checking out the guy walking in with Jordan Rhodes. You need to look like someone they would expect to see her with."
"Hey. I would date a guy who wore a suit from Men's Wearhouse," Jordan said indignantly.
Nick sized her up. "Huxley's right. I better get a new suit."
Jordan folded her arms across her chest, on the defensive. "You two are way off base with these assumptions about me."
Nick turned to face her, taking the bait. "Okay, I'll eat my words right now if you can honestly say that you've dated anyone in the last three years who wore a suit from Men's Wearhouse."
Jordan stared him in the eyes, wanting to prove him wrong like nothing else.
But.
She sniffed reluctantly. "Just to be clear, it's not a criteria I have. True, I tend to meet mostly men who have white-collar jobs. And if they want to spend their money on expensive suits, well, that's their business."
Nick shrugged. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, princess."
Jordan's eyes widened in surprise. She stepped over to him, pulling herself up to her full five foot five inches. "Listen, I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but nobody's calling anybody a princess around here."
"Brooklyn."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm from Brooklyn." The edges of Nick's lips curled up in a grin. "Your majesty."
Jordan stared him in the eyes for another moment, and then turned to Huxley. "Doesn't the FBI have some sort of top-secret vitamin shot they can give agents in these circumstances? Something that can get you up and running by tonight? Anything?"
"Sorry. I'm afraid you're stuck with Nick."
Lovely.
"Trust me, I'm not exactly thrilled about it, either," Nick said. "No offense, but being cooped up in a van for seven hours sounds more fun than hanging around with some elitist wine crowd." He glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. "We don't have a lot of time to pull this all together. Now that I'm taking your place, I need to find a backup man and get him up to speed," he said to Huxley. "And I need to go shopping, too."
He was so bent out of shape about the darn suit. Because of that, Jordan was tempted to hold her tongue and let him figure things out by himself. But like it or not, for Kyle's sake, the two of them were in this together. So she pulled out her cell phone.
"I'll take care of the suit." She scrolled through her contacts list, found the person she was looking for, and dialed.
A man's voice on the other end answered. "Please tell me you're coming in to shop. We've been dead this whole week because of the blizzard."
Jordan smiled. Two years ago she'd discovered Christian, a personal shopper at the Ralph Lauren store, and he'd never let her down no matter what the fashion emergency. "Are you working this morning? I need a man's suit. Fast."
"No problem. I'm at the store already."
"Perfect. He doesn't have a lot of time to shop, so do me a favor-pull some suits in advance. Shirts and ties, too. Nothing too trendy, something classic. I need a size . . ." She looked expectantly at Nick.
He didn't look thrilled that she was taking charge, but he didn't object either. "Forty-four long."
She repeated the information to Christian, who sounded intrigued.
"You've never sent me a man before," he said. "This forty-four long must be special."
"Oh, he's special all right. And he'll be there in fifteen minutes."
"Wait," Christian said before she hung up. "I'm dying here, Jordan. You've got to give me something. Who is this mystery man?"
She hesitated for a second, then realized she had to bite the bullet and start the lies at some point. Might as well cut her teeth on Christian.
"His name is Nick. He's . . . my boyfriend."
ON THEIR WAY out, Nick held Huxley's front door open for her. "Boyfriend, huh? I didn't realize we had taken things to that level."
"Oh, I'm sorry-this is my first undercover operation," Jordan said. "I'm a little unclear about the rules. Are we seeing other people in this fake relationship?"
He followed her down the steps to the sidewalk. "You expect me to make this decision on the spot? I'm a man, Jordan; I can't be pressured into these kinds of things."