Page 117 of Vicious Temptation

I know exactly what I’m doing, and I’m doing it anyway.

Friends with benefits.

I can pretend it’s all part of the job, that I’m playing the role I was sent here to play. Then she smiles at me and looks at me with trust in her eyes, and the guilt gets harder to carry.

She thinks I called in favors and bent a few rules. In theory, that’s exactly what I did. But the truth is so much worse.

With a sigh, I stare out at the city beyond the glass. Sooner or later, she’s going to learn who I really am and what I’ve been doing since the moment I entered her life. The question isn’t whether she’ll hate me. It’s whether I’ll be able to live with it when she does.

I reach across the passenger seat, open the glove compartment, and pull out my father’s notebook. For a few seconds, I just hold it, then I grab the pen tucked inside and turn to a blank page. I don’t know why writing to him feels easier than admitting any of this to myself, but the words come anyway.

I’m in trouble, Pai.

I’m supposed to be watching her, but lately I spend more time thinking about her than about the mission. I’m making mistakes. Losing focus. And the worst part is, I know exactly why.

I pause, staring at the page.

I care about her.

There it is.

The one thing I haven’t been willing to say, even to myself.

My phone buzzes somewhere inside the center console, breaking the silence. I close the notebook and slip it back into the glove compartment without bothering to reach for my phone.

I already know who it is.

Elena.

She’s been calling and texting since I got off shift. Four missed calls after my shower. Six more messages lighting up my screen on the drive to Sloane’s. Elena wants check-ins, “touching base,” she calls it. But I know it’s her way of keeping tabs on me.

As I step out of the car and shove the phone into my back pocket without looking, I decide I’m done with it. Tomorrow, I’m going over her head. I’ll call my superior to request a handler change. Elena’s become too involved, too invested. She’s lost the goddamn plot, and I’m tired of it.

I walk into Sloane’s expecting to find Remi behind the counter, but she’s nowhere in sight. Giving the main floor a quick once-over, I head up to her office. I’ve barely reached the top of the stairs when a woman rounds the corner ahead of me, and my stomach drops.

I recognize her, know enough about her past to know that accidentally crossing paths with the woman formerly known as Amalia Montesinos is about the last fucking thing I need right now.

She doesn’t know me, though, and I need to keep it that way.

I continue toward her without breaking stride, even as my instinct tells me to be careful. She’s beautiful, but there’s nothing soft about the way she carries herself. Her head is high, her shoulders squared, and there’s an unmistakable authority in every step that makes it easy to imagine people moving out of her way without being asked.

But I know what most of them don’t. Amalia Cain spent years making dangerous men regret underestimating her, which makes perfect sense considering who she raised.

I’ve barely made it down the hall when Amalia’s attention shifts to me, and the subtle change in her expression, how her eyes harden as they travel down my body and back to my face, shows that she knows I don’t belong up here.

“Can I help you?” she asks in a way that should have me saying no and turning around.

“I’m looking for Remi.”

“And you are?”

“A friend of hers.”

Her eyebrows knit as she glances toward Remi’s office, then back at me. “If you’re a friend, you can wait for her downstairs.”

I almost tell her that Remi has brought me up here before, but I’m not sure arguing my right to wander a restricted floor with her mother is going to improve the situation.

“She knows I’m here,” I lie instead.