Title: While You Were Spying

Series: Love Undercover #1

Author: Stina Lindenblatt

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Release Date: February 20, 2020

Blurb

She needs a fake husband. He needs to protect his best friend...

Ever since I caught my boyfriend getting hot and steamy with another woman, I’ve thrown myself into my career. But now I’m ready to move from being the super-efficient office manager to an operative with Quade Security and Investigation.

Just as soon as I prove to my boss that I’m kick-ass enough to do the job.

So when my grandmother asks for my help, there’s no way I can say no. Her former love has a mission for Jayden—my hot colleague and best friend—and me. What more could I want?

***

The last thing I want is for Isabelle to be is an operative. She’s my best friend, and I hate the idea of her being in danger. Unfortunately, our boss has other plans.

Isabelle and I go undercover at a resort for happily married couples. But forget moonlight walks and hanging out by the pool. To maintain our cover, we have to participate in activities that would make a nun blush.

Clothes come flying off, and we agree to temporarily be friends-with-benefits while there. No strings attached. No complications. Nothing could be simpler. Right?

Wrong—because there’s another reason we’ve been lured to the resort. A reason that will put our hearts to the test…and our lives on the line.

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Chapter One

Isabelle

I nod at the jogger heading toward me. Six foot. Maybe six foot one. Marathoner. Early thirties.

Good-looking.

Single.

It’s also possible he has a girlfriend or wife, but she doesn’t like to run with him. Every day, rain or shine. Or as is so often the case during our regular morning runs overlooking the bay and marina…the fog.

He nods back like he does every time he sees me, his long stride effortlessly eating up the distance—the opposite of how the run is for me. My legs and lungs burn, beg me to slow down. Possibly even take a siesta.

Not much farther, I remind them. You can do this. I mentally break out the pom-poms and cheer my legs on while I keep an eye on my surroundings, noting anything unusual for this time of day.

That’s not to say I live in a bad neighborhood and have to watch for thugs and whatnots. But the number one rule of being an operative with Quade Security and Investigations is to be aware of your surroundings. The people, the location, the vehicles. Nothing is ignored. Nothing is considered insignificant.

Truth? I’m not an operative.

I’m the office manager—the person those five hot alpha men couldn’t survive without.

But although I enjoy my job, I have a different career aspiration. I want to be more than just an office manager.

I push myself a little harder and a little further, then slow my pace for the cool down. Even though the temperature isn’t exactly warm, sweat soaks through my T-shirt and running shorts. I can thank the last round of fartlek training—sprints that left my legs burning with resentment and resignation—for that.

I can also thank, with a healthy dose of cursing, Jayden Price.

My best friend. My colleague. And in his mind, my personal trainer.

Who is currently away on a mission, being all dark and dangerous and hot, helping to take down a Russian mafia crime boss.

I power walk across the street to the familiar Victorian-style bungalow, sandwiched between two taller houses. Their exteriors are light blue. Mine is rose pink—the color my grandmother on my mother’s side painted it many moons ago.

When she died five years ago, the house became mine, and I decided to keep the colors as they were: warm and eclectic.

I approach the stairs to the porch. Mojo, the big goofball of Bernese mountain dog, lumbers to his feet. His face shifts into his friendly doggy grin.

“Hey, boy. Anything exciting happen while I was running?” Despite his size, Mojo sucks as a running companion. He doesn’t like to run. At. All. Relaxing is his activity of choice.

Not exactly the dog you would associate with a man like Jayden, Mojo’s owner. You’d expect something big and powerful—and a whole lot of scary—like a German shepherd or a Rottweiler.

Mojo gives me a happy woof.

I laugh. “You don’t say. How about I shower, and then we can head to the office? And maybe the guys will be finished with their mission today.” I untie my sneaker shoelace and remove my front door key from it. Then I unlock the door and let Mojo into my house.

As I walk toward the bathroom, my cell phone rings from the kitchen table. Thinking it might be Jayden, informing me that he and the men are on their way to San Francisco, I make a quick detour to the kitchen and answer the phone without checking who it is.

“Hello?”

“Isabelle, darling,” Grandma Josephine exclaims.

A smile breaks out on my face. “Morning, Grandma.” And because I know she’s on speakerphone, and I know her routine, I add, “Good morning, Liza and Henri.”

I open the kitchen cupboard and remove a glass.

The three eighty-two-year-olds say good morning back to me, their voices more excited than they typically are for this time of day. And normally their voices are pretty damn happy.

“I’m in a bit of a kerfuffle,” Granny says. “Can you come over right away?”

“I have to go to work, but I can visit you afterward.”

“Now would be better. It’s rather urgent.” Her honey-smooth voice, which seduced the trousers off many a man in her younger days, has shifted slightly to the panicked zone.

And panic is not an emotion I associate with my grandmother.

“I just returned from my run, and I’m sweaty. Let me shower first.”

“A woman is never sweaty,” Liza says in a falsely snotty tone. “She only glows.”

“Well, my glow needs to be washed off before I can join you. And just so you know, I have Mojo with me.”

“Oh, is tall, dark, and handsome joining us?” Henri’s tone is more excited than usual.

“Darling,” Granny purrs, “how many times does Isabelle have to tell you Jayden isn’t gay?”

“I know that. Besides, even if he were, I’m old enough to be his father.”

“More like his grandfather,” Liza points out with a snorted laugh.

“No, Jayden won’t be joining me. He’s away on business.”

All three of them release a disappointed sigh.

“Such a shame,” Liza says on another sigh.

“I won’t be long,” I tell them before ending the call.

Forty-five minutes later, I’m in Sausalito, pressing my grandmother’s doorbell. After a heartbeat, her housekeeper opens the door and lets Mojo and me inside.

I hug Juanita, who is more like family to me. She’s been in my grandmother’s employment for as long as I can remember. Because the elegantly furnished estate home is too massive for her to handle on her own at her advanced age, she mostly does the cooking and light cleaning. A gardener and housekeeping company are also on Granny’s payroll.

Juanita fusses over Mojo, who laps up the attention like a paper towel. “Now, don’t you get fur all over the place, young man,” she chastises him with her typical warm and friendly smile.

He whimpers as if to apologize for snoozing on Granny’s couch the last time we were here.

“They’re on the balcony,” she tells me, even though I already know that. Unless it’s cold and rainy, the trio always eats their breakfast outside.

Mojo and I step onto the large deck that overlooks the bay. My stiletto heels click against the light, reddish-brown tiles.

Granny and Liza are seated on the wicker sofa, looking as elegant as always in their designer outfits. Henri sits in a matching armchair.

In front of them, the coffee table is loaded with teacups and an assortment of cut fruit and pastries, including my favorite—strawberry-and-cream filled croissants.

Which Granny only has on hand when she knows I’m coming over.

So, this definitely wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment request for me to join them.

Henri, being the gentleman that he is, stands. Or at least attempts to stand. It takes him a minute to get to his feet, his movements not as spry as they were twenty years ago. He’s wearing an expensive Italian-cut suit, the jacket a checkered camel fabric. He also has on a burgundy tie, dark-brown slacks, a fedora, and leather shoes that are worth a small fortune.

Henri has always had an eye for fashion.

I walk over to him, and he kisses me on both cheeks. “Looking gorgeous as always, Buttercup. I can’t believe you still haven’t found a beau yet. Those men are nothing but fools.”

I laugh because he says that every time.

“There’s nothing wrong