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Shit.

That's bad. Because the truth arrives quietly.

No lightning bolt.

No dramatic declaration.

Just a realization settling into my chest with frightening certainty.

I’m in love with Mitchell Knight. There’s no maybe about it anymore.

And I know I’m fucked now.

Because sex is survivable. Attraction is survivable. Even getting tangled up with the subject of my investigation is something I can theoretically fix.

Love? Love gives someone the ability to hurt you.

And Mitchell Knight could fucking destroy me.

“Come on,” he says sometime later. “Let's have dinner.”

Apparently, this is an invitation to everyone. Or an order. It's sometimes difficult to tell with Mitchell.

Either way, the wives cheer, the men agree, and twenty minutes later we're descending on one of Consequence's best restaurants like some sort of rugby invasion.

It's Italian.

And not the white-tablecloth, microscopic-ravioli, twelve-hundred-dollar-bottle-of-wine kind of Italian I would've expected Mitchell Knight to choose.

This place is huge.

Warm.

Loud.

Alive.

There's live music coming from one corner, families packed around tables, the scent of tomatoes and garlic and fresh bread hanging heavily in the air.

A massive brick oven dominates the back of the room. Neapolitan pizzas come out blistered and bubbling. Someone walks past carrying a platter of pasta large enough to feed six people.

“Oh my God,” I whisper.

Mitchell looks down at me.

“What?”

“I may love you for bringing me here.”

The words escape before my brain can stop them.

I freeze. So does he.

Fuck.

I gesture desperately toward the food.

“For the pizza.”