Page 40 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

People love hearing their name. Unless, of course, they can’t tell how you got their name. I let my gaze drop briefly to the access badge clipped to her shirt that’s peeking out at the edge of her jacket. Only the corner is visible, along with the first few letters of her name.

She glances down. “Good guess.”

“The name suits you,” I say.

Her lips lift ever so slightly as she finds my name and checks it off. “The main reception is on the promenade deck, and the casino will open in an hour.”

“And the private table?”

Her expression doesn’t change. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

She does. The lie is careful and prepared.

I lower my voice enough to make the moment feel conspiratorial. “Vaughn Vale told a mutual friend that the most interesting part of his events happens after the charitable people begin feeling sufficiently charitable.”

A laugh nearly escapes her before she catches it. Good. She’s been standing on this ramp for at least an hour, welcoming people who expect her to be invisible and flawless. Maxwell notices her. Maxwell makes this part of the night more entertaining.

“Is there any chance you’d be willing to improve my odds of ending up where the good stories happen by ensuring I have the correct access bracelet?”

Her mouth curves despite her attempt to keep it professional. “You’ll still need Mr. Vale’s approval before entering.”

“Naturally.”

She looks down at my wrist, where a silver bracelet marks me as a general guest. The black ones are reserved for the invitation-only gaming salon upstairs. She exchanges the bracelets with a speed suggesting this is not the first rule she has bent for someone who knew how to ask. I thank her and step onto the yacht, feeling her opinion of me settle neatly into place—charming, observant, and a little entitled, but pleasantly so.

The thought should feel satisfying. Usually, it does. Tonight, all I can see is Reese looking down at her hands and telling me it costs too much to love her. She’d been crying hard enough last night that her words kept catching, but she hadn’t softened them or made them funny. She hadn’t tried to become easier to comfort. She’d let me see all of it.

By the time the alarm on my watch vibrated at five this morning, she was asleep against my chest, one hand curled loosely near my ribs. I’d sat there for another five minutes I didn’t have, trying to convince myself to move. Just looking at her cheek pressed against my shirt, her face softer in sleep than it had been through all those tears. And thinking that waking up with Reese in my arms was a dangerously easy thing to want every morning.

Then I’d eased out of her bed, lowered her onto the pillow, and pulled the blanket over her.

I’d left a glass of water and a bottle of pain reliever on her nightstand in case crying gave her a headache, along with a note telling her good morning and that I had to head into work.

A server offers me champagne as I enter the reception salon. I take one and carry it without drinking. Around me, people in what I’m guessing is several million dollars’ worth of formalwear and jewelry mingle beneath chandeliers that look like falling water. One wall is entirely glass, giving us a great view of the harbor.

“Black bracelet already?” Ledger’s voice murmurs through the receiver in my ear. “You’ve been aboard for twelve seconds.”

Ledger got on board not too long before me and is already near the windows, wearing a black bracelet and talking to a man I recognize as Vale’s nephew. Judging by the way they’re both grinning, they’ve either become best friends in the past six minutes or agreed to do something that will violate at least one maritime regulation.

“How long did it take you to get yours?”

He doesn’t answer through our comms, but I do see the hand at his side form the number four.

Ledger is currently Lachlan Shaw, Maxwell’s younger brother and the more reckless half of our family office. We don’t look much alike for twins, but brothers remain the easiest explanation for the resemblance we do share. Lachlan, like Ledger, believes that the only difference between a stranger and a friend is about five minutes of chatting. Or four, in this case.

“We’re here to make Celeste Alati decide Maxwell Shaw is someone worth knowing, boys,” Nora says in my earpiece, “not add another woman to the trail of emotional devastation Maxwell presumably leaves in his wake, or give Lachlan enough time to acquire a best man, a business partner, and someone willing to name a child after him.”

I move farther into the room as Ledger peels himself away from the windows and begins working his side of the reception, which mostly involves looking wealthy, dangerous, and slightly entertained by everyone around him.

Five days of digging into Julian Rooke and the people he trusts have given us three useful things about Celeste Alati: she has confirmed sponsorship privileges, she’s been seen with one of Rooke’s black referral tokens, and she regularly plays at Vale’s private table when she attends his events.

The token doesn’t automatically make whoever holds it one of Rooke’s clients. It gets them considered. Celeste still has to confirm that she is putting her reputation behind the person, and Rooke will put Maxwell through his own vetting before letting him anywhere near an illicit transaction.

So, tonight’s mission isn’t to take Celeste’s chip. It’s to make her want to give it to me. And I happen to be very good at making people want to open doors.

One of the older women near the center of the salon is trying to balance a champagne flute, an evening bag, and the loose clasp of her bracelet without admitting she needs help. I step in, secure the clasp, and spend two minutes listening to her tell me about the hospital wing her family funded. To her, I’m attentive and respectful, the kind of young man who calls his grandmother every Sunday and understands that philanthropy is a legacy rather than a tax strategy.

A technology founder corners me beside an ice sculpture and describes a security platform that is going to revolutionize commercial shipping. With him, I’m fascinated but skeptical. I ask the question I’m sure he’d been hoping someone intelligent would ask, then another that apparently makes him decide that I’m one of the few people in the room capable of understanding his brilliance.