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Yet I’d done exactly that.

More than once.

I stare at him across the office as the realization finally settles into place. The silver at his temples is more noticeable than I remember. The suit is far more expensive.

Everything about him feels different from the bodyguard who used to stand in the background of Spencer’s life watching everyone else take center stage.

Everything except his eyes. I remember those.

I remember the way he’d looked at me when I was trying very hard not to cry in front of him. I remember the dry humor that coaxed a laugh out of me when I hadn’t wanted to laugh at all.

Most of all, I remember the feeling of being seen by somebody who had absolutely no reason to pay attention.

The file in his hands lowers slightly. His gaze remains fixed on mine. Then I see it happen.

Recognition.

The same realization moving across his face, telling me this isn’t some embarrassing mistake on my part and that he knows exactly who I am.

My pulse kicks harder.

Because there is only one reason the man behind the CEO’s desk would recognize me. And there is only one person he can be.

Bane Wolf.

CHAPTER TWO

Bane

MARCH 3RD

I look up from a spreadsheet full of projected rollout costs for Wolf Shield’s newest AI surveillance platform and immediately lose track of whatever I was reading.

Hospitals, airports, and three Fortune 500 companies are waiting for the next software rollout, which means half my executive team thinks the sky is falling. They usually do whenever we launch a major update.

Emma Love is standing in my doorway.

For a few seconds, I simply look at her, my brain attempting to reconcile the woman in front of me with the fact that she’s standing in my office at all.

It’s been years since I last saw her, three years since I resigned from Spencer Stone’s security team and walked away from a life I’d spent years building around somebody else’s schedule, somebody else’s career, and somebody else’s mistakes.

Including this one.

Before I left, I’d spent a year watching Emma move through Spencer’s world. Red carpets, premieres, charity events, private flights, after parties, interviews.

The locations changed. The pattern never did.

Spencer would get pulled in one direction by attention, cameras, and whatever happened to interest him that day; Emma would smile, adapt, and quietly make herself smaller to fit around the gaps he left behind.

I saw more than I should have.

That came with the job. A bodyguard notices things.

You notice who’s uncomfortable. You notice who’s pretending not to be. You notice when somebody’s smile reaches their eyes and when it doesn’t.

Emma spent months mastering the art of convincing everyone she was fine. She never fooled me.

Then came that night at the gala.