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He smiles at me, shielding his eyes briefly from the setting sun. “Sounds fancy.”

“It’s in a few weeks,” I say. Steeling my nerves, I lick my lips and put my vulnerability on the line. For Alfred. For Avalyn. For myself, dammit. I deserve to be happy. “Would you want to go with me? As my date?”

There’s the smallest beat, and then . . . the satisfying sensation of risk ending in reward.

“I’d be honored, Teeny.”

Maybe it’s finally time to let myself fall.

27

Shane

Saturday, October 23

1:00 p.m.

I hold the black-and-gold book in front of me, actually reading now instead of pretending to, falling into the world of dragons and high-stakes love and danger.

Fourth Wing. I finally cracked it open again last night and committed to reading a full chapter or two to distract myself from all the inappropriate feelings bubbling around, and got so enthralled, I couldn’t put it down. Truth be told, it’s proving to be incredibly topical.

Not the dragons or the war college, of course, but the messy mix of feelings and obligation—that’s dead on.

I groan internally, my eyes flicking up from the page briefly to scan my surroundings.

Every page just makes me think about her more. About the way her laugh bubbles up without permission. About how she smells like vanilla and cinnamon butter and something floral I still can’t place. About the way she looked last night at Alfred’s, curled up on the couch beside me while we watched some old movie she said she’d already seen a dozen times.

She talked a lot last night while we cuddled up on Alfred’s couch and closed the night with one of Avalyn’s favorite movies, Meet Joe Black. She filled in dozens of gaps in information about her life and childhood and her relationship with her dad, her brother, and the beginning of Cordone Freight. Casual details given freely that I’ll be using today to further my career.

Sometimes I fucking hate this job.

The park alongside Furman Hall on Vanderbilt’s campus is mostly empty as it’s still pretty early for students to be out and about on a Saturday, but the occasional runner or dog walker makes their way by every once in a while. A guy with a golden retriever nods politely as he strides past me, and I return the gesture as though I don’t want to crawl out of my skin.

My only moral victory is saying good night with a polite kiss and leaving her to Alfred’s guest room last night instead of bringing her home and tucking her into bed with me.

I cross my ankle over my knee and settle deeper into the bench, waiting for Mike the Brutal to take space on the one behind me.

Sun filters through the shady trees and flickers with the breeze, and a few leaves flutter down with the changing season. Valentina’s signature floral-and-vanilla scent lingers on my skin and my clothes and in the air around me despite a cold shower and scrub before bed last night, and for far from the first time since dragging myself here, I long for the comfort of her body against mine.

It’s far better than the gut-churning guilt of being here to tell someone all the things I’ve learned from spying on her.

My phone goes off in my pocket with notifications from Magnolia Connect, but I ignore them in an effort to maintain my awareness. I catch sight of Mike on the bench behind me out of the corner of my eye, but he and I both wait to speak until a young girl in a hot-pink sports bra and matching shorts runs by.

“So,” he says instead of a greeting. “What’ve you got?” His voice is clipped, like whatever patience he had left is already thin.

“Not much from Valentina directly about her shop’s books or connections to her father’s activities. But she did mention that he’s been working with a nonprofit he started two years ago to put on an event.”

“And?”

I close my book and turn to face him, like we’re a couple of strangers making conversation during our visit to the park. “Tommy’s throwing the party in two weeks. It’s something they’ve been doing every year. A charity ball for vendors and employees from all over the country, and they’re doing it on the lawn of the Parthenon in Centennial Park. It goes without saying there will be a lot of people of interest there.” I shrug. “Not to mention, lots of entrances, impossible holes to fill with security, and aerial access. Probably a good target for any number of enemies, I would think. Lots of exposure and network vulnerability if you’re a terrorist looking to pay him back for fucking up your order, I imagine.”

Mike’s eyes are careful and unreadable, but Feds are notoriously mysterious—especially when they’re sharing jurisdiction with some local schmo from Metro Nashville.

Maybe if I weren’t feeling so shitty about the duplicity with Teeny, I wouldn’t ask. But as it is, having seen inside the mind of what is, in my opinion at this point, an innocent woman, I’d be remiss not to. “What? You don’t think the party’s worth pursuing?”

“We already know about the party,” Mike says calmly. “It’s covered.”

“Oh. Okay.” I look over my shoulder and turn back to finish my thought. “Well, that’s good, I guess.” My brows constrict as I consider the information I’ve been given about this assignment and the level of surveillance on Tommy himself. Because of the limitations of stateside activity, I assumed it’d be another man from my unit if someone else was gathering information. “Wait. Covered how?”