The Palm Reader's Last Client

Marjorie smoothed the silk tablecloth, her palms sweating despite the restaurant's frigid air conditioning. Across from her sat Arthur, the man who'd been her mentor at the agency for fifteen years, now a prospective lover she wasn't sure she could trust.

"You're like the sphinx," she said, tracing the rim of her wine glass. "All riddles and secrets."

Arthur smiled, that enigmatic expression that had made him legendary in corporate espionage. He'd been the best spy the firm ever had, before his unexpected retirement three months ago. Now here they were, surrounded by diners discussing quarterly projections and divorces, while Marjorie wondered if Arthur's interest in her was genuine or just another operation.

"Some secrets should stay buried, Margie," he said, his voice low.

She watched him pick at his spinach salad, remembering the surveillance mission in Prague where he'd saved her career with a single phone call. She'd fallen for him somewhere between the safe houses and coded messages, but loving a man who made his living in shadows meant accepting you'd never fully know him.

"I found the logs, Arthur," she said, the words barely audible. "The ones from the Barcelona operation."

His fork stilled. A woman at the next table laughed, shrill and oblivious.

"Marjorie—"

"You weren't gathering intelligence on the competition," she pressed on. "You were building a private file. On me."

He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she saw something crack in that sphinx-like exterior.

"You think I was investigating you?" His laugh was dark, humorless. "I was protecting you. Someone inside the agency was selling out field agents. You were next on the list."

The revelation settled between them like smoke. All this time, she'd suspected him of betrayal when he'd been her guardian angel in the shadows.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because knowing makes you careless." He reached across the table, his palm covering hers. "And because I couldn't risk you looking at me the way you just did."

Marjorie looked at their joined hands, at the man who had spent decades reading people for a living yet couldn't bring himself to speak the simplest truth to her. Outside, a stray cat yowled in the alley, and she realized that love, like espionage, required accepting that you might never know the whole story.

She squeezed his hand back. Some secrets, she decided, deserved to be kept.