“Mm-hmm?”
“I remember the dress she wore that night.”
Her smile turns wicked.
“Oh, do you?”
“Don’t make that face.”
“Too late.”
I ignore her.
“Dark blue,” I say. “Not navy. Deeper than that. It caught the light when she moved.” The memory is so clean it almost embarrasses me. “Slim straps. Open back. She’s taller than most girls, but narrow through the waist. Probably around a six.”
Jade is already reaching for another phone or notebook or maybe just mentally rearranging the universe.
“I’m on it.”
“Jade—”
“Nope. Too late.” She’s moving now, all business. “You’ve had years to be complicated. Let me be useful.”
Leo laughs softly.
“She’s terrifying when she gets an assignment.”
“I know.”
Jade looks back at me, eyes bright and sharp and suddenly gentler than the teasing deserves.
“Take care of her this time,” she says. “That’s the only part you have to do yourself.”
That one settles, because beneath the jokes and the plotting and the private jets and the absurdity of this whole conversation, that is the thing.
I nod, “I know.”
She points at me again. “And Tristan?”
“What.”
“Try not to make this weirdly sexual in the first ten minutes.”
I choke on a laugh. “No promises.”
“Wrong answer.”
Leo grins. “I’ll have the car meet you.”
The call ends a minute later with Jade muttering something about hotel reservations and Leo telling me to text when I land.
When the screen goes dark, I sit there in the hotel room with the bracket still open, my pulse running hot all over again.
Kane is standing nearby arms folded. “That sounds expensive.”
“It probably will be.”
He raises a brow.
