“You’d still get no.”
“Fair enough.” He raised his eyebrow again. “I’m not going to tell you what Zodiac does, either.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You asked three different ways in the last two minutes.”
“That was conversation.”
“That was reconnaissance.”
Her eyes flashed. Caught. “Fine. We’re both keeping secrets. At least we’re honest about that.”
Something passed between them. A charge, a recognition, the particular electricity of two people who understood exactly what the other was doing and couldn’t stop doing it themselves. His hand was on her hip, and her hand was on his chest, and Boston was right there in every point of contact, unspoken and undeniable.
“You know, you’re not very good at your job. I spotted you from thirty feet away,” he said, “someone else could have done so, too.”
“Oh really?” She stepped slightly closer, moving her hand up his chest, across his shoulder and down his bicep. His brain went close to short circuiting. Fuck, he wished they weren’t surrounded by a room full of people. “You say I’m not very good at my job, yet you’re the one out here dancing when you’re on the clock.”
His earpiece crackled before he could respond.
“Command, this is Zone Three. Camera feed on the north terrace just dropped. I’ve got a blind spot covering the restricted corridor and the secondary exit. Need you to assess.”
Isaac’s hand stilled against Fallon’s hip. Real work. Real responsibility. A client who was paying Zodiac to keep him alive, and Isaac was, in fact, on a dance floor with a woman who’d just robbed someone in the same room.
“On my way.” He touched his earpiece to respond. “Primary, tighten up on the package until I get eyes on the corridor.”
“Copy.”
He looked at Fallon. She’d heard enough to understand. Her expression had shifted—something behind those eyes that he couldn’t read.
“Go,” she said. “Do your job.”
“This conversation isn’t over.”
“Sounds like it is. Shame, since this has been the most interesting part of my evening.”
His too. His whole fucking month.
He held her gaze for one more second. Then he released her hip, stepped back, and turned toward the north corridor.
He made it six steps before he glanced at his wrist to check the time so he’d be able to note it in his report.
His watch was gone.
The leather band, the weight of it, the familiar pressure against his wrist bone. Gone. He’d been wearing it ten seconds ago. He’d been wearing it while he was holding her. Always had it when he was on the job.
Goddamn it. He turned around.
Fallon was standing near the terrace doors, fifteen feet away. She held up his watch between two fingers, the face catching the light. That red dress, those eyes, and his watch dangling from her hand.
She held his gaze across the room. One long, charged second.
Then she dropped it into her clutch, turned, and walked through the doors into the night.
Isaac stood in the middle of the room with an empty wrist and a feeling in his chest that had no clean name. Irritation. Admiration. The weight of a woman who kept leaving him and kept making him want to follow.
He turned and headed for the north corridor. He had a client to protect.
But his mind was already running the angles. Already mapping the pattern. Calculating how long it would take to find a woman who didn’t want to be found.
He was going to find her.
The game was on.
