The hotel room was perfect. Too perfect. The kind of place where anyone could be watching from behind the chandelier or listening through the paper-thin walls.

You dropped the suitcase on the bed, scanning for bugs, while Marie casually slipped out of her coat and hung it neatly in the wardrobe. To anyone else, she looked like an ordinary wife settling in after a long trip. To you, she was the sharpest operative you’d ever worked with—deadly, beautiful, impossible to read.

“Smile,” she murmured, sliding her arm around your waist as she leaned close, lips brushing your ear. “Our neighbors are nosy.”

Your pulse quickened at the sudden contact, but you forced a playful grin and kissed her cheek like a devoted spouse. Somewhere across the hall, a camera clicked.

“Think they’re buying it?” you whispered.

Marie tilted her head, eyes glinting with mischief. “They’d better. Or this mission is over before it starts.”