Page 9 of Howl Lotta Love

“Ever.”

“Not once.” No pride in it, and the flatness of it landed harder than bragging would have. “Don’t plan on starting with you.”

“How many people work for you?”

“Enough.”

“Not an answer.”

“Twenty-two. Ex-military, ex-federal, two detectives who got bored of paperwork.” Rattled off easily, a question he’d clearly answered a hundred times and never once minded. “You’ll meet four of them by the end of the week, if you say yes. Five if you count me.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then I post someone outside anyway, and we call it a coincidence.” He said it casually enough that it took her a second to realize he wasn’t joking. “I’d rather not lie to you. Gets complicated fast, and I’m bad at it.”

“You’ve clearly never once had to try.”

“Never had a reason to.” His jaw shifted, there and gone before she could read it. “Until recently.”

Emma decided that sentence needed a ten-foot pole and went back to the laptop instead—a case study, a kidnapped senator’s daughter, recovered in six hours, no ransom paid. “That’s a lot of very expensive competence for one accountant with a hard drive problem.”

“You’re not one accountant with a hard drive problem. You’re the only person who connected all three charities in one night. Which makes you the biggest threat this operation’s got, or the biggest liability, depending on who you ask.” He crossed his arms, and his jacket pulled tight across his shoulders and her train of thought jumped the rails for one deeply inconvenient second. “I’d rather you stayed a threat. Alive.”

“You could’ve sent someone else. You’re the CEO. Don’t you have somewhere important to be?”

“I’m here.” No elaboration.

“That’s not an answer either.”

“It’s all I’ve got.” He glanced at the whiteboard again, longer this time, jaw setting, visibly tucking the whole case away to come back to later. “You run a one-woman operation out of an office with a keycard system a teenager could clone. I run a firm with twenty-two people whose entire job isn’t letting that happen twice. Draw your own conclusions.”

“I have. You’re bossy.”

“I’ve been called worse today. It’s been an eventful morning.”

Emma studied him. Six feet and change, every inch of it leashed and dangerous, standing in the middle of her very organized office, distinctly out of place, from a far more dangerous version of her life. Recognition clicked into place, unwelcome and immediate: this was a man who didn’t back down from a fight he thought he could win. It was supposed to annoy her. It annoyed her a lot less than advertised.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Take your time.” He didn’t look convinced she’d take much. His eyes drifted to the whiteboard—filled with her handwriting, her whole case laid bare—and respect crossed his face before he shut it down. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s a threat.”

“It’s a business model.” The almost-smile again, gone as fast as it showed up. “I’m very good at my job, Ms. Burke.”

“So am I,” Emma said, and had the deep satisfaction of watching it land somewhere behind his ribs.

They argued their way down to the lobby forty minutes later—unresolved, completely unresolved—but Emma had, against all evidence of her own good sense, agreed to let him walk her to lunch without formally agreeing to anything. A negotiating loss she planned to be furious about later, once she had the energy.

“You get that this isn’t a yes,” she said, on the sidewalk, mostly for her own benefit.

“I get that it’s not a no.” He fell into step beside her, scanning the street the way some men checked their phones—constant, automatic, no effort involved. “I can work with that.”

“There’s a deli on the corner. Decent sandwiches, terrible coffee, and a cashier who’s been trying to set me up with his nephew since March.”

“Sounds like my kind of place.”

“You’d hate it. No sightlines, one exit, and the nephew juggles.” She caught his mouth twitch and counted it as a win. “I’m testing you. See if you flinch.”