Undercover Holiday Fiancée. Maggie K. Black

know it’s not ideal. But my cover is already set and there’s only so much I can change at this point. Plus, we’ve pretended to be a couple before. We play those roles well.”

      Maybe even a little too well. There’d been a moment at the end of the last case where he’d almost wished he’d had an excuse to drag it out a little longer, which is what had led to him asking her out for coffee. “It will only be for a day. Just one day. After that, you’ll take the ring off your finger again and we’ll go our separate ways.”

      But Chloe was still shaking her head. Then she reached into her pocket, pulled out the cell phone and pressed it into his hand. “Here. Take it. I’m off duty and you identified yourself as the lead officer on the scene. If you need me to write a report about what happened tonight, get someone to contact my superior officer.”

      This was unbelievable. The Chloe he knew was tenacious. But here she was just handing him her only leverage and leaving. “But I thought you wanted to be in on this case!”

      “So did I.” Her hand brushed his shoulder, sending odd and unexpected shivers up his spine. “But I think I was wrong. Take care of yourself, Trent. I really hope this works out well for you.”

      His mouth opened but he couldn’t think of any words to fill it. Chloe was walking away and he didn’t know what to say or how to stop her. The phone was in his possession. He’d just won the argument. So why did it feel like he’d just lost something much more important than that?

      * * *

      Chloe’s cell rang. Headlights shone against her living room window, filling it with a brief flash of light. Then the glass went dark again. She sat up and looked out. Snow beat against the pane. Wind shook the glass. The clock read a quarter to seven in the morning. She picked up her cell and glanced at it to see a missed a call from a blocked number. It had to be Trent. But he was the last person she wanted to talk to right now. It was bad enough she’d just turned down the opportunity to work on the payara case and mitigate the damage an investigation into Butler could do to her career, the last thing she wanted was to try to explain to him why.

      He’d asked her to pretend she had feelings for him.

      Chloe sighed and lay back on the couch. She’d been wired after leaving the sports center. She hadn’t spotted Butler at all after walking away from Trent, so she hadn’t had the opportunity to really talk to him except for the few rushed words they’d exchanged in the moments after she’d first run out the sports center. The brief conversation she’d had at the scene with a rookie female officer named Nicole Docker hadn’t told her much of anything. So she’d gone for a drive, then shopping and finally a long walk through the woods surrounding her rural, country house.

      All the while she’d felt the problem of Trent and the payara investigation moving through her mind like the tumblers of a lock she couldn’t quite open. When she’d told him she wanted in on the investigation, she’d envisioned something strictly professional—something that wouldn’t involve staring longingly into his eyes while he pretended he had feelings for her.

      But something about standing there with him in the early morning light as he’d asked her to act like she was crazy about him had sent her heart pounding like she was cresting the top of a roller coaster without knowing how big the drop was on the other side. She was done with chaos and the men who caused it. Working undercover with Trent was like eating a six-scoop ice-cream sundae with whipped cream, bananas, caramel and chocolate drizzle. It was an incredible thrill, which made her feel like she was working at the very top of her game. That was, until he’d left her sitting alone in a coffee shop wondering how she’d fooled herself into thinking he actually cared.

      Her fake engagement ring from their last undercover mission lay on the coffee table. She’d dug it out of her jewelry box when she’d gotten home and wasn’t quite sure why she’d bothered keeping it, considering it was probably only worth a few dollars and she’d never be able to wear it without thinking of Trent. She picked it up and twirled it around in her fingers. It was a heavy, solid ring inlaid with intricate strands of imitation diamonds and emeralds. It felt expensive. Not that she believed for a moment it was anything more than a good piece of costume jewelry. When Trent had given it to her at the start of their last assignment, he told her he’d fished it out of a mud puddle at a truck stop.

      Headlights moved past her window for a second time. She looked out. It was a dark pickup. Was it the same driver passing twice or just a coincidence? Her cell phone buzzed again, and this time her sister’s contact picture flashed on the screen. She dropped the ring and answered it. “Olivia! Hi!”

      “Chloe!” Her sister’s voice was breathless, almost flustered. “Hi! I hope this isn’t too early. Abby’s been teething. Molars, I think. So time has lost all meaning.”

      “No problem. Now is perfect.” Besides, she was thankful to have something to replace the dangerously attractive picture of Trent that still floated at the edges of her mind. Instead she thought about Olivia. Five years younger and almost a foot shorter, both Olivia and her one-year-old Abigail had the same startling green eyes and red hair that Chloe had. A journalist, Olivia lived with her bodyguard husband, Daniel, two hours away. “Everything okay?”

      “You asked me to let you know if I heard anything about Staff Sergeant Butler’s OPP division in Bobcaygeon. There was a major gang shooting there yesterday—”

      “I know.” Chloe cut her off. “I was there. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.”

      Olivia’s voice froze midstream as it switched tone between journalist and sister. “Are you okay?”

      “I’m fine,” Chloe said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier. Can we talk off the record?”

      “Okay. But just so you know, the newspaper will be launching a major investigation into rumors that Butler botched a drug investigation. We’ll be starting it the first week of January. We’ve been hearing it from several sources and this gang violence has given us a pretty strong hook.”

      “Got it.” Chloe blew out a long breath. Torchlight News would be thorough and fair. And Chloe could no more ask Olivia not to run a news story than Olivia could ask her not to investigate a crime. “I saw Trent Henry.”

      “Wow,” Olivia said. “And?”

      “He asked me to help him out on an undercover case.”

      “You said yes, didn’t you?” Olivia sighed. “Clo, you’ve got a rescue complex.”

      “No, I don’t.” True, there’d been a time when a simple phone call from her sister would be enough to make her drop everything and rush to help her, because her sister wasn’t as strong and steady as she was. But Olivia had Daniel now, plus a whole team of bodyguards who worked for him.

      “So says the woman trying to save her former training officer’s career,” Olivia countered.

      “That’s different. Butler trained me. I owe him some loyalty for that. Not to mention it won’t exactly be great for my career if he’s thrown under the bus.”

      Although seeing how little faith Trent apparently had in Butler was worrying.

      “I told Trent no. I don’t need the headache of Trent Henry right now. I mean, I’d like in on the specific investigation. I can’t go into any details on what it’s about, obviously. It would be great for helping me land that promotion. But Trent said it would mean posing as his fiancée and when he said that something inside me just balked. Something about pretending to be dating Trent wrecks me emotionally every time. Plus, I don’t want him thinking he can just sweep into my life, disrupting everything, whenever he thinks he needs me and then just disappear again.” She liked order. Trent was chaos. And, if she did have a rescue complex, it was clear Trent didn’t want to be rescued.

      “But you like him,” Olivia said. “And he likes you.”

      “So? We’re not teenagers. I’m not picking a buddy to do a book report with. And even if I was, Trent’s the