Citrus Betrayals

The orange tabby stretched across the drafting table, her tail flicking against Julian's blueprints. He scratched her ears automatically, his other hand scrolling through the emails his rival had somehow obtained again.

"She likes you," Mara said from the doorway, peeling a clementine. The citrus scent cut through the stale office air. "Cats can sense when someone's trustworthy."

Julian looked up, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. "Is that so?"

Three years of marriage. Seven years at the firm. And now, somehow, Chimera Technologies knew every bid before it was submitted. Every prototype weakness. Every strategic pivot.

The cat — he should give her a name, but Mara insisted on calling her 'the cat' — jumped into his lap. Purred like a motor, warm and heavy and utterly deceptive.

"Your boss called," Mara said, casual as anything. "Wanted to know if we're still on for dinner Friday. With the Chimeras."

The Chimeras. The family that owned Chimera Technologies. The family Julian had been secretly negotiating to merge with, a deal that would make him a vice president, finally secure enough to consider —

To consider what exactly? A child? A future?

He watched his wife eat another segment of orange. Her phone vibrated on the counter. She didn't check it, but she angled her body so he couldn't see the screen anyway.

The spy in his house wasn't the cat.

The spy was the woman who made him coffee every morning, who knew exactly how he took his bourbon, who had access to his home office, his laptop, his private notes. The woman whose sister worked in Chimera's legal department. The woman who'd insisted they move into this apartment two months before the leaks started.

"You're quiet," she said.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

He could confront her. Could demand answers. Could shatter everything they'd built on suspicion and circumstantial evidence.

Instead, he scratched the cat behind her ears. She purred, leaning into his touch, completely unaware that she was the only innocent thing in the room.

"About how much I love clementines," Julian said. "Hand me one?"

Mara smiled and tossed him the fruit. Her expression was fond, affectionate, completely convincing.

He wondered if she'd ever loved him at all, or if he'd just been another assignment.

The cat bit his finger, just hard enough to draw blood.

"She senses something too," Mara said.

Julian peeled the orange, his hands steady, and ate it segment by segment, calculating his next move in a game he hadn't realized he was playing until he was already several moves behind.