This wasn’t my plan, but it’s working.
Now, to escape my dance partner.
“Excuse me.” I try to pull my arm free, but he holds on, guiding me smoothly through the steps.
“I heard you like caffè corretto alla lavanda.”
Oh.Oh.My pulse kicks up.The courier.
“Yes,” I murmur.
He smiles, spins me under his arm, and as our hands meet again, I feel something cool press into my palm. A cell phone. In one seamless motion, I slip him mine. Another twist, another turn, and just like that—he’s gone.
A slow, smug grin spreads across my face. With a casual flick of my wrist, I toss my bouquet into the air and vanish into the festival.
Better luck next time, Ben.
Chapter 23
Ben
Dallas, Texas
Friday morning
There are a lot of ways to lose a woman. Apparently, standing still for five minutes while an Italian parade stampedes past you is one of them. I still don’t know how she pulled it off. One second, Cybil was in my sights. The next? Gone. Whisked away by some wolf-masked Casanova like she was the start of an underfunded Venetian soap opera. He dipped her, the crowd shouted “Bacio!” and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to rip off that guy’s papier-mâché snout and flatten him.
But that was six days ago. Now I’m back in Dallas, tucked inside the four beige walls of my fake office, where I shouldn’t be thinking about a guy in a wolf mask—or how close his lips got to Cybil’s neck. I need to be focused on how I’m going to keep Cybil from getting crushed in the middle of whatever power play Ramirez is orchestrating against Earl Edmond.
Cybil’s lying. I’m sure of it. I just don’t know why. The conversation on the veranda about her father’s settlement money getting stolen has me convinced she’s the same girl I remember—one who wouldn’t let anyone use her. But people change. Life wears them down. My heart wants to believe she’s still that girl. My brain reminds me I can’t afford to be wrong.
Ruby walks in and drops into the seat next to me. “Thought you might want to know—your gran’s background check was approved for a missile launcher.”
Katherine looks up from her computer, clearly concerned about the direction of the conversation.
“That would be funny, except you don’t know my gran. She found a guy selling a cannon on Facebook Marketplace and talked him down to fifty bucks and a blueberry pie.”
Ruby laughs. “Which is worse? A grandma who’s into black-market artillery or one who keeps trying to marry me off?”
“Okay,” Katherine says in a tone that sobers the mood. “We didn’t get into Ramirez’s account with the airdrop device, so that puts us back to square one.”
She sayswe, and I appreciate it. Katherine has always made this feel like a team effort instead of a one-man mission. Doesn’t make the sting of failure any less sharp though.
“Let’s focus on what we do have,” Katherine says, refocusing our conversation.
“What about the guy in Italy—the one at the coffee shop?” Ruby asks.
I scrub a hand through my hair. “I thought he might’ve been following me, but when he left the café, he went the opposite direction as Cybil—Ms. Langford,” I correct, a little too quickly. “After my meeting with Ramirez, maybe I was just being paranoid.”
“Don’t do that,” Katherine says.
“Do what?”
“You’re trained to spot anomalies. Is this the guy you saw?”
She swivels her monitor around so I can see. A grainy security still. I lean forward, squinting. The guy’s build matches. Hair color too. I’m about to saymaybewhen I spot the background—the café. And just behind the suspect? Cybil. Standing close. My hand on hers. It’s the exact moment I tried to stop her from leaving. But from this angle, it looks... intimate.
I shift in my chair. Clear my throat. “Yeah, that’s him. Who is he?”
