“He meant it as a joke,” Nick assured her. Then he thought about that. “At least, I think he did. Sometimes, you can’t tell with Jack.”

“What was the joke?” When Nick hesitated, Cameron looked at Cade and raised an eyebrow. “Morgan?”

“I wasn’t there. Inadmissible hearsay.”

She glared at him, and then turned back to Nick.

The special agent in charge finally caved. “Jack was a little worried—you know, with the way you kind of storm through the hallways in your heels—that someone might bump into you and knock you over.”

Cameron waited. “And?”

“He maybe, possibly, said that if he got word of anyone getting in your way, they’d find out whether there was any truth to that rumor about him knowing how to kill a man with paper clips.”

“I see.” With that, Cameron turned on her heel and began walking down the hallway again.

“He’s toast,” Nick whispered to Cade.

“Definitely.”

They followed Cameron to Rylann’s office, just in time to see two FBI agents leaving. The taller, dark-haired agent stopped in the hallway and watched with an unmistakably warm look in his eyes as Cameron approached.

“Madame U.S. Attorney,” he drawled.

“Special Agent Pallas. Just the man I was looking for.” Cameron went to fold her arms across her chest, then seemed to realize—nope, no room there. “What is this I hear about someone saying that my employees need to stay out of my way or risk an untimely death by paper clip?”

Next to Jack, Agent Sam Wilkins looked up at the ceiling, speaking under his breath. “I told you that would not go over well . . .”

Jack held up his hands. “It was a joke.”

“A joke.” Cameron’s gaze went to Sam. “Agent Wilkins. Was Agent Pallas scowling or smiling at the time of this alleged joke?”

“I plead the fifth.”

“A paralegal practically dove headfirst into a cubicle to get out of my way, Jack. So no more jokes. Oh.” Cameron suddenly put her hands on her stomach, and then peered up at him. “I think I’m having my first contraction.”

Jack’s eyes widened, then he moved closer to Cameron and put his hand on her stomach. “Does it hurt?”

She covered his hand with hers. “I’d say it’s only about a point two.”

Jack smiled, tenderly touching her cheek. “I knew, when we were on that rooftop, that we’d be here someday.”

Cade had no clue what a “point two” meant, and from the way Jack and Cameron were looking at each other, he wasn’t supposed to. Clearly, an inside joke.

He headed back to his office, not wanting to intrude on the private moment, and also because he didn’t want to be thinking about cute inside jokes—because that made him think about a certain green-eyed general counsel, and for the last two weeks his mission had been to not think about said certain green-eyed general counsel.

He shouldn’t be hung up on this.

They’d both known it wasn’t a long-term deal when they’d gotten together, they’d had a mutual parting of ways, and with Brooke likely now moving to Charlotte it had been the perfect time to say good-bye.

This was exactly how these things were supposed to end. No one was angry, they’d had fun while it had lasted, they still liked and respected each other. Hell, he could even envision having coffee with her sometime when she breezed into Chicago to visit Ford and her parents. It was all good.

Except . . . it didn’t feel all good.

Rather, the thought of Brooke leaving, of him merely being some guy she’d once slept with, felt more like a punch to the gut.

Which was precisely the reason he was not thinking about her.

Once inside his office, Cade took a seat at his desk and resolved, as he had many times over the last two weeks, to focus on work. He managed to do a decent job of that, putting himself on autopilot until the end of the day, when a knock on his office door interrupted him.

Vaughn stood in the doorway. “Thought I’d see if you want to grab a drink at O’Malley’s.”

Cade rubbed his face, realizing that he’d been reading audio transcripts for hours. “Sure.” He blinked, and then cocked his head. “I didn’t realize you had any meetings here today.”

“I didn’t.”

Huh. “Then why are you here?”

Vaughn shrugged. “I just figured you might, you know, need a drink.”

Cade frowned. “Why would you th—” Then it dawned on him. “Oh, no. You and I are not doing this. We are not having this conversation.” The idea of him and Vaughn having some sort of best friend heart-to-heart about his relationship troubles was laughable at best.

“You’ve been brooding for two weeks, Morgan. So yes, we are having this conversation.”

“I appreciate it, Vaughn. Really. But no offense—you suck at this stuff as much as I do.”

Vaughn tucked his hands into his pants pockets, not looking offended in the slightest. “Yep. And that’s why God made whiskey.”

* * *

THEY WENT TO a bar a few blocks from the federal building and grabbed a table in the back. After the waitress brought their drinks, Vaughn led in.

“I’ll take a wild guess. This new emo mood of yours has something to do with the fact that you’re not seeing Brooke anymore.”

Cade had shared that information last week, in a terse and abbreviated conversation, after Vaughn apparently had used his FBI powers of super-perception to notice that he was not checking his phone all night. He could sense that tonight, however, he wasn’t getting out of the conversation without giving the agent something more.