“Hey. I would date a guy who wore a suit from Men’s Wearhouse,” Jordan said indignantly.

Nick sized her up. “Huxley’s right. I better get a new suit.”

Jordan folded her arms across her chest, on the defensive. “You two are way off base with these assumptions about me.”

Nick turned to face her, taking the bait. “Okay, I’ll eat my words right now if you can honestly say that you’ve dated anyone in the last three years who wore a suit from Men’s Wearhouse.”

Jordan stared him in the eyes, wanting to prove him wrong like nothing else.

But.

She sniffed reluctantly. “Just to be clear, it’s not a criteria I have. True, I tend to meet mostly men who have white-collar jobs. And if they want to spend their money on expensive suits, well, that’s their business.”

Nick shrugged. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, princess.”

Jordan’s eyes widened in surprise. She stepped over to him, pulling herself up to her full five foot five inches. “Listen, I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, but nobody’s calling anybody a princess around here.”

“Brooklyn.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m from Brooklyn.” The edges of Nick’s lips curled up in a grin. “Your majesty.”

Jordan stared him in the eyes for another moment, and then turned to Huxley. “Doesn’t the FBI have some sort of top-secret vitamin shot they can give agents in these circumstances? Something that can get you up and running by tonight? Anything?”

“Sorry. I’m afraid you’re stuck with Nick.”

Lovely.

“Trust me, I’m not exactly thrilled about it, either,” Nick said. “No offense, but being cooped up in a van for seven hours sounds more fun than hanging around with some elitist wine crowd.” He glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. “We don’t have a lot of time to pull this all together. Now that I’m taking your place, I need to find a backup man and get him up to speed,” he said to Huxley. “And I need to go shopping, too.”

He was so bent out of shape about the darn suit. Because of that, Jordan was tempted to hold her tongue and let him figure things out by himself. But like it or not, for Kyle’s sake, the two of them were in this together. So she pulled out her cell phone.

“I’ll take care of the suit.” She scrolled through her contacts list, found the person she was looking for, and dialed.

A man’s voice on the other end answered. “Please tell me you’re coming in to shop. We’ve been dead this whole week because of the blizzard.”

Jordan smiled. Two years ago she’d discovered Christian, a personal shopper at the Ralph Lauren store, and he’d never let her down no matter what the fashion emergency. “Are you working this morning? I need a man’s suit. Fast.”

“No problem. I’m at the store already.”

“Perfect. He doesn’t have a lot of time to shop, so do me a favor – pull some suits in advance. Shirts and ties, too. Nothing too trendy, something classic. I need a size …” She looked expectantly at Nick.

He didn’t look thrilled that she was taking charge, but he didn’t object either. “Forty-four long.”

She repeated the information to Christian, who sounded intrigued.

“You’ve never sent me a man before,” he said. “This forty-four long must be special.”

“Oh, he’s special all right. And he’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Wait,” Christian said before she hung up. “I’m dying here, Jordan. You’ve got to give me something. Who is this mystery man?”

She hesitated for a second, then realized she had to bite the bullet and start the lies at some point. Might as well cut her teeth on Christian.

“His name is Nick. He’s … my boyfriend.”

ON THEIR WAY out, Nick held Huxley’s front door open for her. “Boyfriend, huh? I didn’t realize we had taken things to that level.”

“Oh, I’m sorry – this is my first undercover operation,” Jordan said. “I’m a little unclear about the rules. Are we seeing other people in this fake relationship?”

He followed her down the steps to the sidewalk. “You expect me to make this decision on the spot? I’m a man, Jordan; I can’t be pressured into these kinds of things.”

She flashed him a sweet smile. “Lucky for you, it will all be over soon. Tomorrow you can have a fake freak-out over commitment issues that will lead to our fake breakup. After that, I think our characters will need some very real time apart.” She began walking toward the street.

Nick caught her by the sleeve of her coat. “I think we need to make sure we’re clear on something. You may be used to ordering your personal assistants around, or the minions at your wine store, but this is my investigation now. Which means that I’m in charge here – only me.”

She pulled out her cell phone and cocked her head innocently. “Should I cancel the suit, then?” When he glared at her but said nothing, she smiled. “I’ll take that as a ‘Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate you helping me out in a pinch like this.’ ”

She headed in the direction of her car, but Nick caught her by the sleeve again. “Where are you going? You’re coming with me to the Ralph Lauren store.”

“Why would I go?”

“Because I’ve got about eight hours to make sure this undercover op is successful, and you need to fill me in on everything you told Huxley on Thursday. Particularly the description of Eckhart’s office.”

Jordan pushed up the sleeve of her coat and looked at her watch. “It’s after nine. We’ll be cutting it too close if I go downtown with you. I’m supposed to open my store at ten and I need to go home and change first.”

“Can’t you get someone to cover for you?”

“Unfortunately, no,” she said. Martin and Andrea – one of the two associates who worked at DeVine Cellars – were both set to cover the store that evening while she was at Xander’s party, and her other sales associate, Robert, was out of town that weekend. Plus, they were having a closeout sale on several wines her distributors were unloading at bargain prices and she needed to get shelf talkers in place before the store opened. “Is there another time we can talk?”

Nick looked over at her car. “Does that Maserati come with Bluetooth?”

For over a hundred grand, about the only things it didn’t come with were ejector seats and a parachute. “Yep.”

“We’ll do this by phone. I have your number.”

Of course he did.

They separated at the street and climbed into their respective cars. Immediately after starting hers, Jordan pushed the button that warmed the tan leather seats. Like good wine and great shoes, heated seats on a February morning were at the top of her most-prized list of luxuries. She let the car idle for a minute before easing it out of its tight parking spot. Heading in the same direction as Nick, she took the one-way side street toward Lake Shore Drive and caught up with him at a stop sign.

She saw him glance at his rearview mirror, spotting her behind him. A few seconds later, her cell phone rang. When she answered, his whisky-rich voice came through the car’s speakers.

“So I’ve been thinking about your question. My character has decided he doesn’t want to see other people.”

“What made you change your mind? Let me guess – the Maserati.”

He chuckled. “Our cover story is that my character has been smitten from the moment he met you. He’s not about to let another man get anywhere near you.”

“Your character sounds a little possessive. Is this something my character should be worried about?”

They came to a stop at the light that would take them onto the Drive. Nick’s voice was low, even smoother than the car’s engine. “I think your character secretly likes it. You’ve been dating boring, uptight guys for too long. You’ve been looking for something different.”

Jordan looked sharply at the SUV in front of her. “I think your character presumes too much.”

His eyes caught hers in the rearview mirror. “Does he?”