Page 57 of Velvet Vaughn

Chapter Eleven

Anja woke at seven, and for the first time in longer than she wanted to count, she didn’t reach for the Sig Sauer on the nightstand first. She reached for the empty, warm spot in the bed.

Leo was gone. She’d half-surfaced an hour earlier when he’d eased out from under the sheet, pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder, and murmured something about an early start and letting her sleep. She’d let him think she had. There’d been something worth savoring in lying still with her eyes closed, listening to a man move quietly around a dark room so he wouldn’t wake her, a courtesy nobody had extended her in years.

Anja tossed back the sheets, sat up, and ran an honest inventory. She’d expected awkwardness. That was the part her mind kept circling. She’d braced for the morning after, the not-quite-eye-contact, the unspoken negotiation about what last night had and hadn’t meant. Last time, she’d handled it by removing herself from the equation, letting him walk out with his shoes in his hand and calling it a clean exit. She was good at those. She’d built a whole life out of them.

There’d been none of that this time. He’d kissed her cheek, called her gorgeous in a sleep-wrecked voice, and told her to stay in bed. The only thing that had threaded through her chest as the door clicked shut behind him had been a low, inconvenient warmth that bore no resemblance whatsoever to regret.

That should have alarmed her more than it did.

Anja got up before the thought could grow teeth and found the exercise room, knowing BeBe would stock the house with equipment for any operatives staying there. She’d been right. She climbed onto the treadmill and ran eight miles before powering through a set of dumbbell arm exercises to strengthen her once-shot shoulder.

When she finished, the shower was excellent because COBRA Securities did nothing halfway. A note sat propped against the carafe when Anja entered the kitchen.

Took him at 0640. Will text every hour with updates. He’s in good hands. Eat something that isn’t coffee. — R

Anja smiled at that last line. Then she read the note again, slower, and the smile faded into something more useful, because the woman who’d spent the night in Leo’s bed was already giving way to the operative who’d spent years being very good at a dangerous profession.

She should be with them.

The thought had been gnawing at her since before dawn. Every instinct she owned wanted to be in that building, in Leo’s blind spots, reading the faces in the room when his name came up and guarding his six. Remi was solid. She didn’t question that in the least. But it should be her.

Leo was walking into a tower full of people who’d known him for years and might include the person responsible for the pictures of Chloe that had been delivered to his condo. It would be difficult for one operative to watch a principal and read a room and clock the small wrong things that told you who didn’t belong.

And she was the one stuck here, four miles away, because she’d been introduced to them as Leo’s date.

Anja made herself sit with the frustration rather than pace it off, since that wouldn’t put her in that tower. Sulking wouldn’t either. What she could do was park herself in front of the case board and the secure laptop and work the evidence.

She carried her coffee to the office and got to work.

The butcher paper from yesterday held Vic Shaw circled in the corner and the three agency boxes underneath. She added a fourth heading down the side, Coworkers, and beneath it began listing every name Leo had given her from inside Pinnacle. The partners, junior agents, and support staff who moved through the building, the receptionists and assistants, and the IT contractors who saw everything and got noticed by no one.

Then she opened the laptop, logged into Tyler’s secure client, and started digging.

#

The night came back to Leo in pieces as he was getting ready, and he let it. Fighting it was a losing game. He’d convinced himself that one night had been the entire story, a door that opened once and closed for good. He’d made his peace with it using the same strategy he reserved for losing a client: decide the loss was final and refuse to pick at it.

Last night blew that theory apart. He hadn’t moved on. He’d been lying to himself.

Anja had pulled him into that room as if she’d been deciding against it for months and was done fighting. He remembered the heat of her, the sounds she made when she stopped policing them, and how she’d gripped him afterward in the dark and not let go for a long time. He’d woken before his alarm with her blonde hair spread across his chest and had stayed still for ten full minutes. Leo had wanted to bank it in case it didn’t happen again. In case the morning made her reasonable.

He’d kissed her cheek, told her to sleep, and left her warm and loose and beautiful. The memory of it carried him down the stairs where Remi waited, wearing a navy suit that fit his linebacker frame as if it had been personally offended into behaving.

“You look like a man who got good news,” Remi remarked, checking his watch. “I’m choosing not to ask.”

“Smart man.”

“I am. It’s why they pay me the medium bucks.”

Leo laughed. “And here I thought it was your humility.”

“That’s extra.”

Leo was still grinning when he followed Remi to the SUV. They made it a few blocks into traffic when Remi glanced over. “Sleep well?”

“I’m rested and ready to face the day.”