“I know.” His eyes flashed back to her, brief and intense.
Before she could respond, he was gone—slipping into the current. She couldn’t tell where he was headed.
Norah stayed where she was for exactly thirty seconds. Enough to grab a sparkling water. Enough to answer one surface-level question from a partner’s wife about her dress.
Then she drifted, angling for a line of sight.
Marshall reached Hale just as the cluster thinned. She saw the moment Hale registered him, saw the polite curve of his mouth, saw the assessing glint behind it.
She couldn’t hear the words, but she knew Marshall’s body language well enough to translate. He was relaxed—but not really. Smiled—but not quite. The kind of posture that saidI’m harmless, I’m charming, I belong herewhile every cell of him scanned for weakness.
Hale laughed at something he said. Clapped him on the shoulder like they were old friends. For a moment, Norah had a fleeting hope that maybe Marshall had finally accepted that her mentor and friend was someone they could trust. Perhaps he was even trying to befriend the man, for her sake.
A waiter passed behind them with a tray of drinks. Hale turned to snag a glass. Marshall shifted, just slightly.
And Norah saw it.
A brush of bodies. A casual bump. Hale’s phone, which had been half-tucked into his jacket pocket, disappeared under the veil of movement.
Her stomach dropped.
The certainty shattered.
And what rushed in to replace it burned.
Hale didn’t seem to notice—yet. He turned back, glass in hand. His attention was still on Marshall, head tilted as if listening to some innocuous story.
Marshall’s hand was at his own pocket now. Too smooth. Too practiced.
Heat flared in Norah’s chest—shock and anger. Betrayal. He hadn’t told her this. He hadn’t trusted her enough to say it outright.
Sorry, No-no. I’m targeting the man who’s mentored you for a decade. I’m going to use your presence here to get what I want.
You’re just my access.
The floor felt less steady under her heels.
Of course he was here for the mission. Of course he’d choose the op over her. He always had. She’d told herself this time was different—when they’d danced, when he stayed on her couch, when he held her in her ruined apartment.
Maybe she’d been stupid.
She watched the conversation shift. Hale’s relaxed posture stiffened a fraction, his eyes dropping in instinct to his pocket, confusion flickering when his fingers didn’t find his phone where he’d left it.
In another second, he would put it together.
She crossed the space in a few determined strides, the crowd parting just enough. Her heart hammered. Her palm was damp around the stem of her glass.
“Richard,” she said, slipping between them with a laugh that sounded almost natural. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Hale’s attention snapped to her. Relief flickered—then wariness. “Norah. Is everything all right?”
She slid her hand lightly down his arm. “I just wanted to apologize.”
Marshall went very still beside them.
“For what?” Hale asked.
Norah swallowed. This was it. The line. The choice.
