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“I’m glad,” I murmur, letting my hand hover briefly over a stray strand of hair, brushing it aside. She notices it but doesn’t move. I step back, aware I almost did something foolish. So I do what I do best, I change the subject before kissing her.

“I’ve been searching for new things, while you were busy avoiding me.”

“Me too,” she says quietly.

“Tell me.”

She begins listing anomalies she found. The gaps in the footage, some inconsistencies in witness statements, and a lot of administrative oversights.

I nod, letting her words sink in. “Good job, Mireya.”

She leans back, letting space return between us. But she’s proud of herself, and I like the way it looks on her. I shift focus, forcing myself back to the case.

“The donors,” I say. “The director is hiding something. Whoever we’re tracking… has been funneling money into this place for years. Nothing official I think. But it was enough to keep things buried and clean on paper.”

She traces the lines between dates and amounts. “It’s just… weird.”

“Then we wait for the right moment, and we’ll find the list and see if any name on there makes sense to us.”

She taps the paper once, then looks up at me. “So,” she says lightly, “we wait.”

“We wait,” I reply, “yes.”

“You’re very bad at waiting,” she adds.

A corner of my mouth lifts. “So are you.”

Her eyes flick to my mouth then back to my eyes. “I thought we were done flirting, Damien,” she says.

I want to tell her she restarted it, that I never stood a chance. But instead I smile and reply, “I thought so too. Then you looked at me again.”

She smiles again and I pull her chair closer. “I don’t remember doing that.”

“You do,” I say quietly. “You always do.” Before I can stop myself, my fingers brush against her wrist. “You, Mireya Vitelli, have the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, it’s almost impossible not to notice them.”

Her fingers move to my tie and I stop breathing for a second. She loosens it to pull it free from around my neck. Her eyes stay on me as she wraps the fabric around me, covering my mouth. And then she leans closer. My entire body goes still when I meet her eyes. They stay on mine the entire time, and that ruins me.

My hand moves, closing around her wrist, and she doesn’t pull away. Instead she leans closer, then her lips press against the fabric covering mine.

The kiss never reaches my skin. It stays there, between us, separated by the smallest possible barrier. And somehow, that makes it worse.

When she pulls away, she whispers, “No breaking rules.”

She rises slowly, and the distance comes back. I look up at her and for a second, I forget every reason I should move.

She looks… beautiful.

“You should go,” I say.

“I should,” she breathes softly.

“Yes.”

“You told me earlier,” she says carefully. “that you were feeling something. Something that made you sick.”

“I did.”

Her gaze stays on mine. “Do you still?”