“Good.” I flipped my perfectly curled hair forward and ruffled my fingers through it, messing it up. Then I went to the mirror and used my thumb to smudge my lipstick ever so slightly, but all the while, I remained hyperaware of the way Leon watched me. Like he was decoding a puzzle. Or coding one.
“You know what you need to do?” I checked with him, pressing my finger to the communication device in my ear.
He gave a small nod in response and tapped something on his laptop that gave a soft ding in my ear.
“Working,” I confirmed, then checked my watch. “I should get back down there. He still at his table?”
Leon shifted his gaze back to the computer and double-clicked. “Yup, and he has a friend with him now, too.”
Irritation ran through me. “Dammit. Who?”
Leon shrugged. “His back is to the camera. He hasn’t taken his coat off, though, so he might not be staying long.”
“That explains why he was sitting there alone all night,” I pondered aloud. “He must have been waiting for this guy.”
Leon nodded. “Give me one minute.” He pulled Edward Gates’s keycard from his pocket—lifted from him when Leon had gotten up to “go to the bathroom” earlier. It took no time at all for him to scan the card and duplicate it, then he stood up to hand the original back to me.
I tucked it into the small pocket in the seam of my dress, then checked the mirror to make sure it didn’t show through the fabric.
Leon hadn’t gone back to his computers, instead standing just a fraction closer than necessary as I checked over my costume.
“What?” I asked, meeting his eyes in the mirror.
He arched a brow, running a hand over his facial hair. It wasn’t long enough to really be a beard per se, but it was deliberate enough to be more than stubble. There needed to be a word for that in-between length.
“That looks fake,” he told me, indicating the way I’d smudged my lipstick.
My eyes narrowed. I hated being questioned on my methods. This was one of the major reasons I preferred to work alone. Because other merc’s always thought they knew better. Arrogant assholes, all of them—myself included.
“You’re an expert now, huh?” I held his gaze in the mirror, confident that he was just being critical for the sake of being critical.
The corner of his lips kicked up in a tiny smirk. “Just think you could make it look more convincing, that’s all.”
“Oh yeah?” I replied, spinning around and planting my hands on my hips. “And how do you—”
Okay, maybe I was being a bit of a fucking idiot there. Because there was only one other way to make it look believable, so it really shouldn’t have come as such a surprise when Leon grabbed me by the hair and crushed his lips to mine.
It shouldn’t have been a shock—if my wits were about me. But my brain had been glitching ever since the moment I got shot in Prague. Ever since I decided to call Leon for help, instead of Carlos. So I was stunned for a hot second before eagerly kissing him back.
My lips parted for him, and my body melted into his touch. Then he pulled back abruptly, his chest heaving slightly and his eyes glassy.
“There,” he said in a rough voice, “now it looks real.”
Huh?
Leon swiped his thumb over his lower lip, stained with my lipstick, then casually returned to his computer setup. “Good luck. Let me know when you have him ready.”
What?
Oh. The mission. Of course.
“Sure thing,” I murmured, shaking my head to clear the potent cloud of lust before leaving the room. The mission. Focus on the mission, Danny.
9
A quick glance at myself in the elevator mirror confirmed that Leon had been right. Now I looked like I’d just taken a quick—albeit unsatisfying—roll in bed with my shitty husband. Now I was putting out sex vibes that were impossible to miss. It’d be all Edward Gates would be able to think about… hopefully.
Leon had just been looking out for the mission. Or I was pretty sure that’s what that was about. And yet I couldn’t seem to stop my lips buzzing with the memory of his kiss as I rode the elevator back down. I ran a hand through my hair, and the little tangle I snagged reminded me how aggressively Leon had grabbed my hair. Rough sex really wasn’t my thing, but goddamn, I’d been into that.
And then he went right back to his computer like he’d brushed lint off your skirt, dumb ass.
The elevator reached the ground floor again while I mentally scolded myself for thinking Leon was kissing me because he was actually attracted to me.
He’s probably forgotten about it entirely already.
My professionalism howled a dying wail as I quietly hoped Leon hadn’t forgotten about it already. I wanted him going over it in his mind just as badly as I was right now. Wondering where things might have gone if we didn’t have a job to fulfill.
“Mrs. Smith,” the maître d’ greeted me as I re-entered the restaurant. “Did you forget something?”
Her eyes ran over my disheveled appearance quickly, and I smoothed my hair self-consciously.
“No,” I replied in that breathy voice that my version of Michelle used. “I just came down for a drink at the bar, if that’s okay?”
The hostess’s eyes softened with something bordering on pity. “Of course, come over here.” She escorted me to the bar and set me up with a wine list. “First one is on me.”
“Oh, thank you,” I replied, fluttering my lashes like I was on the verge of tears. “That’s so kind of you.”
The maître d’ just gave me a warm smile, then gestured to the bartender to tell him my first drink was free. She didn’t linger with awkward conversation, making her way straight back to her desk at the front door and leaving me alone at the bar.
Not that I’d be alone for long.
Edward Gates was still speaking with his friend in low, hushed tones, but I caught him glancing over at me more than a few times. A minute later, the unknown man handed over an envelope to Edward, then got up to leave.
“Our friend is on the move,” I murmured into my wine. “You get his face?”
“Got it,” Leon replied in my ear. “I’ll run facial recognition later.”
I didn’t reply, because there was no sense in risking being caught talking to myself for no good reason. Instead, I just sipped my wine and looked as bored and pathetic as possible.
Sure enough, a few moments later, Mr. Gates strolled over from his table and rested his hand on the back of the barstool beside me.
“Hi,” he said, offering me a friendly smile. “Is this seat taken?”
I batted my lashes and resisted the urge to point out that literally no one else was sitting at the bar, so there were plenty of vacant seats. I smiled and murmured for him to join me.
“Where’s your husband?” he asked after ordering another scotch. I could smell it on him, and his eyes held a glassy sheen that spoke to a decent level of intoxication. I was going to need to be quick about working him over, or he’d pass out and be utterly no use whatsoever.
I licked my lips nervously. “He’s got a conference call,” I said in a mousy voice. “They usually run for a couple of hours.”