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The first test walks in at 8:50. Beck is on the phone as always, running some poor soul in circles and loving it. For one horrible second, I'm certain it's tattooed across my forehead. I watched you tip until it hurt last night, and I liked it. But he wings a "morning" at me on his way past, the exact one he gives the espresso machine, and drops into his office without a glance back.

And I remember, he doesn't know. None of them know. That's the whole point. That's my entire edge.

I breathe. Okay. I'm Agnes. Agnes routes calls and orders lunch and does not, repeat, does not think about her bosses' hands on her body.

Then the morning hands me a gift, and I take it, because apparently I'm the sort of woman who is gifted things now.

There's a ten o'clock with a founder Beck's been chasing for a year, a man here to be wined and charmed and closed. I set up the big conference room myself: waters, the good pens, the projector queued to Beck's presentation deck, not that he needs it. The man was born to perform.

The client shows up early, and I get him settled with a coffee and tell him the partners are on their way. Then I go to collect all three of my Knights from their respective offices where they perform their daily Masters of the Universe business.

And somewhere between the front desk and that conference room, the devil climbs right into me.

Diablo.

They converge in the hall the way they always do. Beck mid-story, Theo checking that everybody has what they need, Elias bringing up the rear, silent, a folder in one hand. Three men who spent last night on their knees for a woman they can't see, striding in to close a deal like they own the world, which, to be fair, they pretty much do.

I hold the conference room door open and look at all three of them, sweet as pie. Agnes all the way. Then I say it.

"He's all set for you." Pause. "One at a time, gentlemen." Pause. "Everybody gets a turn."

Then I watch the way I watch my screen at night when I’m Diablo.

Beck goes first because Beck is loudest. His grin doesn't falter because it never does, but it twitches, a quarter-second skip like an old-school record album catching, and his eyes cut to mine and go somewhere, for one flicker. Then it's gone, papered over, and he booms, "That's the spirit," and sails past me into the room.

Theo’s next. Sweet Theo, who types did you eat today to a stranger at midnight and truly means it. He hears the familiar words come out of my mouth in broad daylight and goes pink to the tips of his ears. He stares straight ahead, mumbling something at my shoulder that might be thanks, Agnes and hurries in after Beck.

Two for two. My heart is slamming and I feel both incredible and like I might throw up.

And then there's Elias.

Elias stops.

He was two steps from the door, folder in hand, the human glacier, and he stops. He turns his head. He looks at me, and for a moment I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. But I straighten my spine and absorb how he looks not through me but at me, right here in the world headquarters of Ardent Capital, under fluorescent lights that make us all look sickly. Elias Thorne looks straight into my eyes and holds it. One second, then two, and my stomach grinds and I realize I’d better get to the ladies’ room before I barf in front of an important client. I didn’t plan on being stared at for a length of time that does not normally pass between a receptionist and the man who has spent a year plus ignoring her.

I know that look. I watched it last night, from the far side of a camera. Same man, going just as quiet, except now he's four feet away, and there's nothing between us but a doorframe, the smell of his shampoo, and a whole lot of lying.

I should look away. Agnes would look away.

Not Diablo.

For two seconds, I look right back at Elias Thorne and let him see what's on my face, and the whole thing I felt last night comes roaring up in the middle of a Tuesday, that is, the pull, the heat, the desire, and it is so much hotter in the flesh that my knees threaten to wobble and take me down.

Then the client says something bright from inside the room, and the bubble pops. Elias walks through the door without a word, like nothing ever happened.

I go back to my desk, convincing myself that I will not get sick and therefore do not need the ladies’. I sit and watch the phone light up with calls that need answering. But I let them go to voicemail because my hands are not quite steady, and I know my voice would not be, either.

Here's what I tell myself, and I almost believe my own bullshit. I just performed a test, and I passed. I dropped a Diablo line in front of all three of them and not one of them said hey, that's my camgirl. My secret held. My edge is intact. I rattled them a little, which is fine. Rattled is the whole game. Rattled is exactly what I set out to do. And besides, it was fun.

That's what I tell myself.

What I don't admit, not even in the private back room of my own head where I accept and deny things as they suit me, is that Beck's flicker and Theo's blush were the reactions of men caught off guard.

Elias's wasn't.

Elias looked at me like a man who knew exactly what I'd just done and was daring me to do it again.

And God help me, I want to.