“I can tell by the tone of your voice that you weren’t passionate about it,” I note.
Corinne smiles. “Yeah… it wasn’t satisfying to me. I mean, I loved helping people. It was rewarding, but I just felt I could be doing so much more.”
“Which led you to Jameson?”
She nods with a fond expression. “It’s everything I could want in a career. It’s exciting, and they’re accomplishing important missions that save lives. I get to be a part of that.”
A silly grin cracks the planes of my face. “I have to admit… that Cage Murdock is a crazy son of a bitch.”
“I can’t believe he got married,” Corinne murmurs. “And then his wife promptly got kidnapped. I’m glad you were able to help out and recover her.”
“You should have seen Cage.” I shift slightly, lifting my head to rest it on the palm of my hand with my elbow pressed into the mattress. “He jumped off the roof, then came crashing through the windows on a rope. He was the distraction that allowed us to come in with flashbangs and stun the kidnappers into a quick surrender.”
“See?” she exclaims. “I love this job. Not that I had a hand in that particular rescue.”
“Well, if everyone is as crazy—and I mean that fondly—as Cage, then you have your work cut out for you.”
“I think there has to be some level of crazy for a lot of these missions,” she muses lightly. “Not in a clinically diagnosed type of way, but you just have to have that extreme level of bravery and willingness to go beyond the norm to pull them off.”
“Like, how do you mean?” I ask curiously. I have to admit to being fascinated by Jameson. When Griff had asked me to step in and help with Cage’s wife, I had to check out the company first through my own contacts. They are incredibly well regarded, and the U.S. government uses them for deep-op missions.
“Well, take Kynan, for example,” Corinne says as she puts her head in the palm of her hand to mimic me. Our other hands come together in the middle, and we lace our fingers. “He sprang a woman from prison who was convicted for hacking U.S. nuclear codes to work for his company.”
My eyes practically bug out of my head. “You’re kidding. Like… how does that even happen?”
Corinne shrugs. “No clue how that happens. Kynan has some wicked high-up contacts. When I say “high up,” I’m talking about that office in a house painted white that’s not square.”
Chuckling, I squeeze her hand. “I suppose this hacker was important to the organization. It takes balls to make a hire like that.”
“Totally,” Corinne replies. “And then you have Cruce, who took the president’s niece on the run from terrorist kidnappers, and Saint, who infiltrated an extremely dangerous European organization to bring down a heist ring.”
“I think the FBI isn’t as exciting as I once thought it to be,” I mutter.
“It’s not all fun and games,” she murmurs. “We just got back one of our agents who was taken prisoner for several months. He was left in a hole in the ground until we could recover him.”
That hits me hard… not just the thought of what that man went through, but also the reason Corinne is so necessary to Jameson.
“It’s your job to make sure all those people are mentally strong enough to do what they do,” I surmise. “I think that might make you the most important member of the team.”
Giggling, Corinne waves me off. “I don’t know about that, but I do like being part of a team that does important work.”
“Is Kynan hiring?” I joke.
“He’s always looking for good men and women to add to the team,” she replies, giving me a coy grin. “But I’m not sure I could handle us working together.”
“Why is that?” I ask.
“You’d be way too much of a distraction for me.”
There’s no real way to describe how much that pleases me. That Corinne is so much into me that I would distract her… I’ve never been that to anyone. It would sound trite to say the same back to her, but yeah… if we worked together, I doubt we’d be very productive.
“What about you?” she asks. “What have you done for the last nine years?”
“The same as always. I stayed in the Atlanta office until this opening came up. I’d heard good things about the Pittsburgh office, and I guess I just wanted a change of scenery.”
Twisting, I glance out at the winter wonderland. I could get used to that scenery for sure.
“What about… um…” She stammers, her words drying up.
I return my gaze to Corinne. “What about what?”
“Relationships,” she murmurs, her cheeks getting pink. “Any serious ones?”
“Not really,” I reply, but isn’t the term ‘serious’ relative? “I’ve had some long-term monogamous relationships if that’s what you mean. Longest was maybe two years. But they never progressed past dating exclusively. I was always the one who was dumped because I couldn’t commit.”