Page 23 of Howl Lotta Love

“That’s not—” Emma visibly decided arguing with Diesel’s logic wasn’t worth the hour it would cost her. “Fine. Not tonight. Maybe next time.”

Milo didn’t glance up from the medical kit he was restocking. “I give the cover story forty-eight hours before it stops being a cover story. Nobody’s taking bets tonight, but I want it on the historical record that I called it early.”

“Nobody asked, Milo.”

“I never wait to be asked. That’s the whole system.”

Jace let the noise wash past him, running the floor plan again behind his eyes—entrances, sightlines, the dozen small ways a room that size could go wrong in under a minute. He’d run worse operations with worse odds and never once had his focus slip this badly. Victor Kane wasn’t the distraction. The woman currently arguing catering logistics with a six-foot-five wolf shifter, treating the whole exchange as perfectly routine, was.

Gerri had booked the boutique fitting without asking anyone, which surprised precisely no one, and Jace found himself pacing a dressing area heavy with orchids and money, waiting for a woman to walk out from behind a curtain and end his career as a functional adult for the second time in one week.

“I don’t need your opinion,” Emma called from behind the curtain. “I need you to confirm the dress doesn’t have a security flaw.”

“Can’t confirm that until I see it.”

“Suspicious logic. Fine.”

The curtain moved. Every tactical thought in Jace’s head evacuated at once, no survivors.

Green again—darker than the ballroom-night silk, cut close through the waist, falling in a line that rerouted every functioning brain cell he owned somewhere well past strategy. Her hair was down, loose in a way he’d never seen, and she watched him watch her, plainly satisfied with the result, like she’d run an experiment and gotten exactly what she wanted.

“Well?”

“It’s fine.” His voice landed rougher than the word required.

“You’ve been staring eleven seconds.”

“Checking for concealed weapon access.”

“You were not.”

“There’s a slit up the side. Anyone could hide a knife in that.”

“I’m hiding a knife in that.” She turned, checked the fit in the mirror, far too pleased with herself. “Emergency measure. You’d be amazed how often a woman needs one at these things.”

He wasn’t amazed, and he tucked that fact away as one more reason this woman was going to be the death of him, and none of it on the clock.

She caught him staring in the mirror and didn’t call him on it—only tucked the moment behind her eyes, a thing worth keeping, and went to find better shoes.

“You know,” she called from the shoe rack, not looking at him, “you’re allowed to say the dress works. I won’t hold it against you.”

“The dress works.”

“That’s it? Three words?”

“Rationing them. I’ve got a whole gala to survive, and I need a few functioning brain cells left by the time we walk in.”

She laughed, and the sound of it hit him low in the chest, somewhere his training had never once prepared him to defend.

The gala took the bottom floor of Kane Foundation’s twenty-story high-rise Jace had cased twice, which made the security review fast and the charm offensive noticeably harder to fake.

He kept a hand at Emma’s back crossing the ballroom, steering her past the string quartet and a wall of donor photographs toward the bar, sensing the room take notice of them before he’d finished the walk—the newly engaged security consultant and his accountant, fresh gossip dressed up in black tie. Conversations caught half a beat as they passed. Picked back up the second they’d moved on, already reassembling the story into a better shape than the truth.

Victor Kane held court near the bar the way certain men held court everywhere—effortlessly, warmly, a hand on every shoulder and a name for every face. Silver-haired, expensively tailored, the kind of smile built to make people feel personally chosen. His eyes gave away nothing.

“Mr. Maddox.” Kane’s grip was firm, dry, calibrated down to the millisecond. “And Ms. Burke. The city’s talked about nothing else all week. I confess I didn’t see it coming—a security consultant and a forensic accountant. Practical people, both of you. Practical people rarely fall this hard this fast.”

“Practical people know a good thing when it walks into them.” Jace’s palm settled low against her spine, and she leaned into it exactly enough to sell the line.