"So, no, Ryan, I'm not spontaneous," Naz says, referring to my earlier remark. Her gaze is distant, still browsing her memories. "Or Luca wouldn't have built this elaborate scheme. He meant to satisfy my innermost secret desires."

"So innermost that you didn't know you had them?"

The ring she's just described weighs her finger. I didn't put it there, only restored the borrowed chip of wealth to its place. Should I have insisted on her wearing the wedding band? It sounded stupid back then. Back then? How droll for me to feel that way about our wedding day, given it's only been a few weeks since then.

A flash of resentment descends on the heels of regret. Did she tell this yarn in excruciating details to humiliate me for fucking her on the public beach? Why? She was there too, groping me on the sand, clawing my pants off. If anything, it was me who tried to stop her, though not wholeheartedly.

I should snap out of it. This isn't a great moment to bellyache over a friendly roll between the sheets, much less to erect a cloud castle. She came to me for help. That's what I should give, without letting the juvenile dick measuring contest impair my judgment.

"Did he..." I stop and grit my teeth. I won't avoid the bastard's name. It would only make his ghost in this bed more corporeal. "Did Luca tell you that you wanted this complex seduction routine?"

"He didn't have to. I figured it all by myself," she snaps.

I wave invitingly. "Go on."

"That's the way he loves, by collecting those tiny mosaic pieces..." She scrunches her face funnily. "What do you call them?"

"The tesserae, I think?" I honestly have no idea where I've heard the word, but Naz' brows lift approvingly. Immediately, I'm keen to spend the rest of the night researching the Byzantine mosaics, so I could casually impress her again. This's a terrible, terrible time to lose my marbles and turn into a simp.

"Okay, the tesserae." The expression of pleasant surprise melts away, replaced by its exact opposite: disappointment. It's not my erudition, though, that causes it. It's the old splinter under the nail. "Luca falls in love with the smile or the shape of the earlobe on one woman, the roundness of the heel on another, and so on. Together, those tiny bits complete a perfect woman, his ideal. He's not satisfied until he has it all together."

I don't like the sound of silence that falls between us. It lets her slip away into her toxic dream-world. "He assembles a perfect woman in his mind by keeping different lovers to suit his perverted needs."

She chews her lip. "The way you put it is crass, but it's how it is. He loves them all for what they give him."

Pillow talk is the time-honored spying method. It's been around well before Mata Hari made it cool in popular imagination. So salacious, plenty of ink is wasted on the don't fall in love trope. It's one of those rules created to be broken.

The warmth of her skin and the scent of her body remind me how easy it is. It's not even a fucking speedbump. Never fall in love with your enemy, blah, blah, blah... What could possibly go wrong?

But I must keep the business in the mix, no matter how much I like her hair spilled on my pillow. "You're romanticizing what he does, Naz. He's a pro in grooming women."

Her eyes narrow, steel glinting between the eyelids. This is why, it's so hard to imagine her in Luca's web.

"Please, Ryan, go on. Mansplain what happened! Because I only gave it four years of my life to understand it, but obviously, I'm not seeing my ex clearly."

Her tone is dangerous, so I chose my words carefully. I dig being allies with benefits far more than being enemies with benefits. Or just enemies. "I don't know exactly."

"You don't know? Because you sounded very sure just now."

"I know that he doesn't love you, not even in this weird way you've invented."

"Invented, huh?"

"Listen, please. I've investigated Luca's liaisons. I've tried to nail him for a stat rape, but... Naz, have you met any of his lovers except Amber?"

"Amber?" She pinches her lips. "Pansy, you mean."

"Fine, Amber Hudson, code-name Pansy."

"No, I haven't met the other..." the exhale turns into a few intakes of breath, like she's been running. "The others."

"Okay." Acid reflux threatens to burn a hole through my stomach, but I'll take something for it later. "See, the way you've described Pansy, she fits the profile. You don't. You're an exception in Luca's M.O."

For a split second, I think she'll tell me to go fuck myself. To which I'm ready to respond with, I prefer you do it. Alas, the terrible pun has to wait and so is the fucking. It's a pity because it would have been a great ending to this painful conversation.

She slaps me lightly on the shoulder. "Go on, I'm still listening."

"How generous."

"Take it or leave it."

I take it because I'm a fool. Also, because it's my wife we're talking about here. "All the girls are like Pansy. They're young and vulnerable enough to fantasize about a better man saving them. But not young enough to lend him in trouble with the law—"

"Could it be that our suspect is a lawyer? Congratulations, Mr. Ryan Holmes, you've solved another great mystery!"

I grit my teeth. "I'm not playing games. They were old enough to stumble on, once he deserted them. But barely, Naz, and completely disillusioned. They all were barely old enough to handle him..."

Her jaw tightens. "What you're saying is that I'm too old for Luca."

"Too old. Too capable. Too... too everything. Naz, you're so many things, but Luca's girl you're not."

She laughs so loud and long that it spooks me. She laughs till there are tears streaming from her eyes. Her eyes gleamed with welling up tears for a while now. She had finally let them fall.

I sit up, draping the sheet over my midsection. "I'll go get you some water."

Her hand grasps my elbow before my feet touch the floor. "Ryan, you're missing the forest for the trees. I'm not Luca's girl, because he wants to marry me, not for a casual hook up."

Checkmate.

She put her finger on it. I shouldn't argue. I should keep my mouth shut, that's what I should do, but the inane desire to be right torments me like fire held to my heels. So, before I think better of it, I argue.

"Yes, Naz, yes, but he's groomed you! The colossal efforts he put into it doesn't change the fact that it was the same thing."

She jerks her hand away. "Are you mad? I'm not Pansy. Luca loved me. He still loves me!"

Her shriek scrapes my nerves raw. Not only she wouldn't admit that I'm right, but she also can't have a logical discussion about it. Can't she hear herself? Luca loves her! Why does she cling to this crappy illusion if she isn't brainwashed by the motherfucking bastard? "Take a deep breath. I'm not saying you're like Pansy, I'm saying—"

"I've heard every single word you had to say." She puts pregnant pauses between the words. Every. Single. Word.

Naz slides to the bottom of the bed, tosses the blanket aside. It lands over me. One corner slaps me in the face, drawing tears when it nicks my eye. Dammit, I miss my glasses!

If she notices the damage, she doesn't apologize, channeling furious energy into gathering her clothes. When the crumpled skirt trips her, she balls it and shoves it into the dry-clean only pile looming large next to the hamper.

"Naz!"

The problem with small spaces is that after she scoffs, she has nowhere to go to make a grand exit, except to our tiny bathroom. She marches on, slamming the door shut—or she would have if it didn't stick. I should have fixed it, but I didn't, because I had more important things to worry about. Rescuing Naz, mainly.

I come over, draping the blanket round myself in a toga fashion. We're dealing with a royal fuck-up here, so I might as well dress for it. Attired like an Emperor, I lift the sticking end of the door to close it behind her.

Maybe she needs a moment of privacy to figure it out. Maybe I should take a step back and let her think.

Instead, I press my forehead and my palms to the door that hides her away from me, like some creep. "Come on, Naz. You know that I'm on your side. I want to get you out of this mess."

"Give it a rest, Ryan," she calls back, hiccupping. "And to think... to think..." Or is she sobbing into something soft? Sobbing? I'm going to shoot Luca, mark my words!

She pulls in air noisily and I can imagine her rubbing her cheeks with my towel before finishing the sentence at last. "To think...that you have a reputation for mixing business and pleasure! You know shit about it. About anything!"

I freeze by the bathroom door.

Surprise, surprise! She knows more about me than she lets on. There's only one person in the world who could have told her that.

Scali's girlfriend, Bryn. Once upon a time, the Tangorellos had caught her in their grip. They locked her up, slashed her eyes. I wanted her to testify against them, but Scali was in the way. I tried to out-compete him as boyfriend material... yeah. It was stupid and it ended with him getting the girl. And that's when I fed Bryn that line, mixing business with pleasure... and now she told Naz. Dammit.

If those two had a candid girl talk about me, I'm screwed. But it makes one thing clear—Naz is milking me for all I'm worth as an ally, including the benefits. That's all there's to our 'connection'. Shit.

"I know your fucking type," Naz rants in the bathroom. Her sobs are no longer muffled. They're so wet, she'd need to blow her nose soon. "The moment you get in with a woman, some reptilian gland in your brain secretes a shitty fantasy about her being an abused angel."

Well, at least she thinks I might have feelings. Should I celebrate?

The water starts in the shower, trickling at first, then pouring. "And I'm not an abused angel, Ryan! Luca had to pick up Amber to satisfy this fucking saving-fallen-angels craving. What is it with men?"

That reptilian part of my brain she bemoans? It immediately pictures her naked in the shower, weather bedazzling her skin, pouring down her blond hair, turning them into thick, wet tresses. If I didn't start this argument, I could have squeezed in with her. I would be holding her wet, warm body right now, laughing about the tight quarters. Kissing her. Maybe even doing some synchronized thrusting.

Instead, I'm high and dry and the bed has lost all its charm. It has lumps and they hurt my back. Stupid bed.

"Do you even realize how fucking humiliating this is?" Naz calls.

That might be a rhetoric question, but I must make my point anyway. "The last thing I want is to humiliate you!" I yell over the noise of splashing water.

That wins me cackling. "Then what do you think you're doing? Empowering me?"

Okay, count to ten before countering this. Maybe a hundred. A thousand?

"Naz..." God. I know, I'm about to blurt out something stupid, and I can't stop. Counting didn't do shit. "I'm trying to make our co-op about something more important than revenge."

Fear tugs on my gut—this really sounds like crap. She wouldn't believe a word I'm saying. But I never back out once I'm in a fight, like a dumb bulldog. Kinda like Naz. This character similarity doesn't bode well for our marriage.

"I want us to do something that'll actually make the world into a less wretched place. I think we can do it. That it'll be worth it... Naz? Naz?"

Is she even listening to me anymore or just crying? I stomp toward the bathroom door. "Naz, talk to me, or I'm breaking the door down." That would fix the door for good.

Surprisingly, the threat works. "Stop ennobling yourself at my expense," Naz replies. Then she cranks up the water to the max. At this rate, she is going to turn lobster-red, and I'll have to deal with the mildew on top of everything else.

"I'm even going to help you with that, Ryan. We're not sleeping together again, because, obviously, you can't handle it."

Let the evidence speak for itself. In my opinion, it's not me who can't handle the allies-with-benefits scenario. The ounce of brain that still lives inside my skull suggests I don't voice this deduction. I do slightly better. I shout, "Fine! I'll wait till you ask me to fuck you."

"Mwa-ha-hah!"

"Is that the best impression of the evil overlord you can do?"

There's a different kind of splashing, like she's throwing handfuls of water into her face. I don't know how she didn't run out of hot water yet. Or, maybe, she did.

"Mila?" I ask after a minute of this not-so-peaceful soundtrack of a wench-in-the-fountain.

"So, it's Mila now?" Her voice turns dangerously saccharine. "Is this from your Big Infiltration Playbook, the chapters on how to humanize criminals while undercover so you don't have to hold your nose 24/7? Don't compartmentalize me, Bureau."

"I'm no longer an agent."

"Then don't act like one."

Two-and-half yards are not enough to stalk away with the cloak rippling in your wake, but I land into the desk chair with as much of a crash as possible. With a short fuse like this, I'd have washed out of Quantico in a jiffy. Good thing I was younger and wiser back then.

I wake the laptop and dive into work to calm my frayed nerves. Maybe it's not a deep dive, more of a skimming along the surface, but the heat drains from my face. A few minutes—and I don't miss keystrokes as I type.

When Naz emerges from the shower in a cloud of steam and starts dressing, I stoically ignore what she picks to wear. My wife is going out, so what? I also bite my tongue when she waters the money tree again. Once she's gone, I would drain the plant, buy some dirt and a big enough container to re-pot it.

"I'll be right here, working on Plan C," I inform the charged air.

Her one foot is already out of the door. "Bye, Ryan!"

It would have sounded like bye, Felicia, if she didn't rush over to stuff her dry-clean-only into a humongous plastic bag, darting annoyed glances at me right after. I type as busily as I can manage, adding great thoughts to my document.

"Providing those cucumbers don't catch heat..." she reads over my shoulder. "Great job factoring the vegetables in. I would have never thought of that!"

"Shit. I hate autocorrect."

"The quick and decisive actions by the brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," she reads another line. "Good point as well!"

I snap the lid shut. "Bye, Naz."

She scoffs, catching the emphasis on not-Mila.

After the drumbeat of her heels dies down, I lean back in the chair. She's a smart girl, she'll come to appreciate my points. Right? No matter how much I wrestle doubts away, they come back and bring friends. The rowdy, uncultured friends who love kicking a man below the belt.

You took her to the beach. Ah-ha-hah... Luca took her for a weekend in Morocco.

They point and laugh.

She's beaten people half-to-death, and you've told her she was a fallen angel.

"I didn't!" And I'm not going to wonder if Naz's checking out a blond rando in a bar. Or if I made enough impression to even qualify for revenge sex on her part.

My invisible friends howl with laughter. It gotta be some entry-level stage of madness. Given my mental state, I abandon work, pop a sleeping pill, and stretch across the bed. The whole bed.

Sleep still eludes me when Naz's heels pelting the deck announce her return to the castle.

I wish I could pull the pillow over my head to shut off her pacing, but it would tell her that I'm awake. Also, I wouldn't put it past her to press the pillow tighter over my face. I even move a little to free up space for her.

The sound of heels ceases. She tip-toes downstairs barefoot and curses venomously when she bumps her knee into the bed frame. Venomously, but under her breath... so Naz hates me, but worries about waking me up? God, this marriage is so fucked up!

How can a man process this? Perhaps, with copious amounts of alcohol? Not on top of the sleeping pills or I'll be wasted tomorrow. Fuck.

Naz slips into bed and curls up at a judicious distance from me.

I suppress the desire to ask if she has enough space, if she is comfortable, and where the fuck has she been?

Shavasana, Ryan, shavasana.

I stretch on my back and count down from a thousand, ordering my body to relax joint by joint, limb by limb. I want to dream of Naz grinding Luca's bones into dust; then her lips should part like they do during sex to say, I love you, Ryan.

A wistful smile fleets over my lips. Everyone needs wholesome dreams.