Page 13 of Howl Lotta Love

“Tucker’s background checks are a hate crime against my privacy, and I’m allowing it anyway, which tells you how seriously I’m taking this.”

He opened his desk drawer. “Third.” He pulled out a slim black case, setting it on the desk between them without ceremony. Inside sat a thin silver bracelet, delicate enough to pass for jewelry, heavy enough that Emma’s eyebrows went up when she lifted it. “Panic trigger’s built into the clasp. Two taps, my whole team knows your exact location inside three seconds.”

“Conveniently, you happened to have this on hand.”

“I had it ordered this afternoon after the van.” He didn’t apologize for it. “Give me your wrist.”

She hesitated a half-second, then held her arm out across the desk, and he took it—her skin warm under his fingers, pulse ticking fast at the inside of her wrist while he worked the clasp shut with more care than the task strictly required. Neither of them said anything for the several seconds it took. He was aware of every one of them.

“There.” He didn’t let go right away. “Fourth term, since we’re doing this properly. Anything the engagement requires in public—the touching, the performance—stays performance. I’m not using an operational cover to take liberties you haven’t agreed to.”

Surprise crossed her face, there and gone. “Noted.” She drew her wrist back, flexed her fingers once like she was shaking off a live current, and held out a hand instead—brisk, businesslike, every inch the woman who’d built a career catching people who thought they were smarter than her. “Deal, Mr. Maddox?”

He looked at her hand, then took it.

Her grip was steady. Competent. Exactly what he’d expect from someone who’d spent years shaking hands with people who’d rather she didn’t exist. His hand swallowed hers easily, and her pulse jumped once against his palm the second their skin met—small, involuntary, almost certainly not meant for him to catch.

He caught it. He held on a beat longer, and she let him, and neither of them mentioned it, which said much more than either of them intended.

“Deal.” He let go before his wolf could weigh in on a subject he’d only have to overrule out loud.

Emma cleared her throat, already reaching for her coat. “I’ll need my go-bag from my apartment.”

“I’ll send Roman.”

“Absolutely not. No one judges my personal space.”

“He’ll judge it regardless. He’s already seen your ledgers.”

That got a real laugh out of her—short, startled, gone before she could call it back—and Jace decided, watching her fight her own amusement, that he intended to spend a significant portion of this fake engagement chasing that sound.

“I’m still furious about the apartment,” she said, coat over one arm, already at the door.

“Noted. You can be furious somewhere with better locks.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Been called worse.” He caught her eye. “Ask anyone in the building.”

“I intend to. Starting with Roman.”

“He’ll tell you I’m a delight.”

“He’ll tell me you once threatened to fire a man for reorganizing your pens.” She didn’t look back.

She left him standing in his own office, thoroughly outmaneuvered, which he was beginning to suspect was going to become a running theme he’d have no interest in fixing. He was still standing there, faintly stupid with it, when Roman’s voice carried back down the hall, already narrating the engagement to someone on the phone with the enthusiasm of a man who considered this his personal victory.

Tucker had five tabs open by the time Jace made it back to the intelligence center, none of them the license plate.

Roman fell in step beside him, wedding jokes gone the instant he read the room. “How bad.”

“Depends how fast whoever’s behind this moves.” Jace didn’t slow down. “So far, faster than I’d like.”

“On it.” Tucker didn’t look up, all the usual lightness gone out of his voice. “Paranormal social circles—two charity boards, a pack alliance group chat, and Kane Strategic Holdings’ PR feed, which reposted the society blurb forty minutes ago. Congratulatory. Public.”

Jace read Kane’s post twice. Maddox Tactical Securities’ CEO confirms engagement to forensic accountant Emma Burke, dressed in exactly the breathless language Gerri’s people had clearly fed to somebody with a byline.

His wolf, minutes ago thoroughly pleased with itself, went dead quiet. He filed the name away—Kane Strategic Holdings, reposting within the hour—and wondered, without much conviction, whether that was only coincidence.