Page 33 of Velvet Vaughn

She set the empty bottle down.

“De Luca?”

“Yeah.”

“One more thing.”

“A matching handbag?”

“Funny. No. Whoever built that library knows your firm from the inside. There is a non-zero chance that somebody in that ballroom tonight has seen at least one of those photographs before they went on the drive.”

His mouth firmed. “I know.”

“You’re going to shake their hand anyway.”

“Yeah.”

“Because if you don’t, they’ll feel it.”

“I know, Anja.”

She held his gaze across the kitchen island longer than she’d meant to, then reached for the dirty plates and slid off the stool. If she stayed, she was going to do something genuinely unprofessional, like putting her hand over his and squeezing.

“Then go shower,” she instructed him, carrying the plates to the sink. “You look like you slept in your shirt.”

“I did not sleep in my shirt.”

“De Luca.”

“What?”

“You look like you slept in your shirt.”

Anja smiled as his low laugh followed her to the sink. She didn’t turn around because the feeling he’d planted in her heart forty minutes ago was still sitting there, and the night had only just started.

#

Leo made it to the bathroom under his own power, which frankly felt like a meaningful accomplishment.

He turned the taps to hot and stood with one hand braced against the tile while the shower warmed up. Watching the water pound against the stone bench, he tried to remember the last time he’d put actual food in his body. The eggs didn’t count. They had been a survival event.

Bellerive. He’d had a club soda and three of those crab cakes at the cocktail tent in the early afternoon. Twelve hours ago. That explained why he was leaning on a wall to keep his head off it.

He stripped, stepped under the spray, and let the heat do what it could.

It wasn’t enough. He’d been running on caffeine and adrenaline since the news alert hit his phone on the eighteenth fairway, and his body had finally figured out that the threat in the room was not, in fact, a charging bear. The adrenaline was draining out of him through the soles of his feet, and the caffeine, which had carried him through the drive home, the wait for Anja’s arrival, and the file-by-file march through the worst photographs he had ever seen of people he loved, was wearing off in real time.

Leo washed his hair on autopilot. He stood under the water for thirty more seconds than he needed. If he turned it off, he would have to think about putting clothes on, and that seemed like a gargantuan task.

Finally, with effort, he turned it off, toweled down, and pulled on a clean white tee and a pair of black joggers because he wasn’t getting back into pants tonight. He walked out of the bathroom barefoot.

Anja was hovering over her laptop with one hand on the trackpad. She lifted her head as he padded into the living room and held his eyes for a beat that turned, very quickly, into a frown.

“De Luca.”

“I’m fine.”

“You walked through that doorway like a man on his third concussion.”