Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.

Ship of Spies

So maybe it wasn't very nice to omit telling her that the cruise meant getting married, but he hadn't thought that she would ever have agreed otherwise. He absolutely couldn't stand the thought of taking Francine (or any other woman) either.

Amanda was his partner, and that meant dealing with uncomfortable situations. Together.

In separate rooms.

He could compromise. He was a good partner.

No, scratch that. He was a terrible partner.

What kind of scoundrel tricks a woman into marrying him, even if it isn't for real? Him, apparently. He'd tricked Amanda into this phony wedding, and he hadn't even had the decency to consider that she might have been okay with it if he'd just told her the truth before they left.

He'd bet everything he owned that Amanda would be breathtaking in a wedding dress.

He really should be concentrating on searching the casino, not wondering how Amanda was doing in the bridal shop.

He felt her before he saw her, oddly enough. He had turned his head to greet her before the doors to the casino even opened.

"I thought you were in the bridal shop," he said, a little annoyed at how easily she had found him. Am I that obvious?

"I was. But everything was way overpriced. And then I thought that C might mean casino. And there would be a lot of number 24s in the casino."

Bless her. She was starting to think like an agent.

"Mm-hm. I know. I checked it out. That's my job, remember? Your job—"

"— Is to help you."

She slipped her arm through his, and he covered her hand with his. It felt right - something an engaged couple might do - but he hoped it wasn't just part of the cover.

"Lee, we're not the only people on this ship who aren't on the level. Did you notice how nervous Arturo was at brunch?"

"What do you expect? He's getting married tomorrow."

And so are we, and I don't know if I'm ready for that level of —

"No, it wasn't that kind of nervous. It was the kind of nervous you are when you're hiding something."

She'd let go of him somewhere along the way, and he missed the comforting pressure of her hand.

"Everybody's hiding something."

"Well, no, there was a little bit more to it than that. Did you notice how Carmen kept passing him things before he even asked for them? I mean, she put the cream in his coffee and she passed him the sugar. It's like they've been together for a long time."

"So you don't buy that bit about them only knowing each other for a week?"

"No. I think they've been married for a lot of years."

He couldn't help but feel just the tiniest bit jealous of those two, married for years and still very much in love. Maybe someday that would be him. A man could dream, after all.

"That's pretty good, Amanda."

She ducked her head, shy but pleased at the compliment.

"Any other candidates for 'I've Got a Secret'?"

"Mmm. Miles and Jillian aren't in love."

How did she do it? Were there simply no women in the world who were really in love with the man they claimed to love?

"Oh, our resident expert."

"No, I may not be an expert, but I know what I saw. She paid more attention to you than she did to him."

He'd noticed. It had made him uncomfortable, as if her brazen flirting made him somehow at fault.

"And besides that, they were sitting way at opposite ends of the table, and they just don't look like an engaged couple about to be married."

Well, her track record of knowing whether a woman was in love or not stood at four for four, so who was he to disagree? It was one reason he had been so determined to have her be his partner on this trip - her intuition was spot on.

"Yeah, you may have a point, there."

He had been right - Amanda in a wedding dress was breathtaking. It was a beautiful dress in its own right, but he would not have given it a second thought on its own. With her wearing it, he found himself stealing glances at her when he thought she might not be looking.

He stood there now, in front of the priest, intensely uncomfortable with the charade he was playing. Her eyes were wide and trusting behind her veil, and he hadn't even told her he had given a false name.

And now it was time to slip a ring onto her slender finger, and then to kiss.

For a second he hesitated, then reached for her veil. Her head ducked a tiny bit as he raised the filmy material, uncovering his bride for the first time.

She really made the loveliest bride.

He tilted his head down, and she tilted her face up to his, and then she was kissing him and he was kissing her.

The shock he had felt, that night he had first kissed her through the window, or even the tingle when she had touched his hands by the Thames — these were nothing to the waves of electricity buzzing through him now.

Her lips were as soft and supple as they had always looked, and she kissed him twice before he had to pull away.

She'd kissed him.

She reached up and wiped his mouth, and it was such an Amanda thing to do that the spell was broken.

He held the gun trained on Miles and Jillian, his left arm wrapped snuggly around Amanda. Her head was buried in his shoulder, and she was shaking badly.

All the training in the world wouldn't have been able to prepare her for this one. Jumping out of a moving car was one thing, but jumping out of a car with no brakes in a full wedding dress was another. He didn't think he'd ever seen anyone else manage it.

She had been amazing. He was so proud of her.