Page 80 of Flirting with Forever

Great, Cam. Maybe you can post a snap on Instagram too. “Um, yes, I guess you could call him that.”

Mertons nodded and balled the paper in his hand. Pressing the bridge of his glasses upward, he said, “You’re aware what you’ve done is illegal.”

She felt a different sort of warmth creep across her cheeks, the sort of warmth one feels when called into the principal’s office. “I’m not aware of any law I violated.”

“Ignorance is a very weak defense.”

“Who are you?”

“Gregory Mertons, Guild time-jump accountant.” He held out his hand.

“Time-jump accountant?”

“Yes.”

“What were you doing in Peter’s studio?”

He lowered his hand. “I’m an envoy and an observer. I travel the world to ensure the appropriate time rules are being followed. Think of me as a UN ambassador, the painting world’s version of Angelina Jolie.”

She looked at his hangdog eyes and Abraham Lincoln–like lankiness. “Um…”

“The Guild has been watching you for some time.”

“Watching? Spying on, do you mean? And what is the Guild?”

Mertons reached into his pocket and retrieved a mechanical pencil. “It’s not spying when the use of the time tube is unlicensed.”

“Gee, and I swear I sent in my application.”

“We don’t consider this to be humorous, Miss Stratford. Time travel is exceedingly risky, especially unprecalculated time travel.”

“Good news. I aced precalculus in high school. I never travel without my quadratic formula.”

“Miss Stratford—”

“Mr. Mertons, why are you here?”

“How shall I put it? Your travel visa has been revoked.”

Jacket had won every game of strip blackjack they’d played until he taught her to read the “tell.” Mertons clicked his pencil.

“You’ve shut down the tube?” The laptop with the extra-special version of Amazon was in her bag on the table in the entry hall. She tried to keep her eyes focused on Mertons.

Click click click click. “Yes.”

“Gosh, it was my favorite part of the DeLorean.”

The pencil stopped. A muscle contracted at the corner of Mertons’s eye. She felt like her laptop was practically tapping her on her shoulder, and she cupped a hand around her eye to block her view.

“Yes, well, I’m certain you’ll find other uses for it,” he said uncertainly.

Well, wherever he’d been in his life, he hadn’t been anywhere in the western world in the 1980s. She should have introduced herself as Pat Benatar.

“I also want to talk with you about your book.”

“My goodness,” she said, “it’s just a festival of fun tonight. I think I would have preferred the insurance pitch.”

“This is a bit awkward, I know, but I’d like you to consider dropping it.”