Page 2 of The Art of You

There were lives on the line, and I couldn’t let what was wedged between those two magazines risk tonight’s mission because my focus was now collapsing under the pressure from my past.

I needed a way to get through this without the truth leaving my mouth. If Hudson or my brothers knew about that photo, they’d pull me off the op tonight. They’d go through with the mission because they had to, but then something might go sideways because they were distracted, and I couldn’t let that happen.

I had to adjust and find a new way forward to get through this night.

I walked barefoot to the door, mentally preparing myself for the face-off. “I need help.”

“So, I take it you want me to get Callie after all?”

“No, you can help me.” Resting my hand on the knob, I closed my eyes, my heart rate pulsing in my ears.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to help you get dressed.” That deep, husky tone felt richer and more indulgent than the dark chocolate I’d polished off an hour ago. While golf put me to sleep, candy was my go-to for a pick-me-up.

I finally opened up, letting him know there was no risk of seeing his best friend’s sister indecent.

Given my current state of mind, what I hadn’t been ready to experience upon seeing him, never mind so dramatically, was lust. But I fell headfirst into the feeling, forgetting tonight’s objective and the distraction between the magazines.

Standing before me was the six-foot-two definition of handsome. Long legs were encased by perfectly fittedtrousers. A pressed white shirt stretched along broad shoulders. He was leaning forward, his suit jacket draped over his shoulder in one hand, with his other palm wedged against the doorframe, his bicep flexed. His thick brown hair was slicked back, and I was dying for a lock to escape so I could reach out and brush it away from his forehead.

But it was the two blue pools of trouble now staring at my face that had my stomach all fluttery.

Photo? What photo? Emergency mission? What mission?

One hot look from this man could melt the polar ice caps ten times faster than the burning of fossil fuels ever could.

He shoved away from the doorway and put on the jacket, never losing hold of my eyes. “Seeing as you tackled the dress problem, what do you need my help with?”

I blinked my way from his eyes to his mouth and licked my lips, time traveling back to our one and only kiss that happened the last week in May.

To keep with our couple cover during an undercover op in Rome, I wound up kissing him. What I hadn’t anticipated was for him to turn the moment into a French one. His tongue had cruised between my lips and met mine. I’d been left dizzy, lightheaded, and desperate for more.

I’d attempted to see if “more” might happen between us. There’d been a gas leak at my place, and I bunked at his apartment for the weekend. I’d embarrassingly gone so far as to traipse around in a bikini to sunbathe on his balcony, wearing my sexiest one, too. You would’ve thought I was a nun in robes with a crucifix around my neck the way he’d treated me.

“You ready?” my brother Alessandro yelled from downstairs, and my attention took a sharp U-turn back to the problem at hand.

“One minute,” I called back, eyes returning to Hudson’s as I did my best to remember what I’d planned to say to him.

“Bella?” The only person to ever call me that had a tendency to rob me of my precious brain cells whenever he said my name while locking eyes with me. Holding me prisoner right now, in fact. “You nervous about tonight? Is that what’s going on?”

I almost snapped my fingers at my side as my thoughts finally clicked in place.Nerves.That was what I’d planned to ask him to help me with. Hide my issues in plain sight with some version of the truth. “I’m nervous about the mission. I don’t normally go out in the field with you.” I turned toward my bedroom, unable to look at him any longer, worried he’d get an accurate read on me and know I wasn’t being honest.

“Going solo may raise suspicion. Although I rarely attend my father’s political events, when I do, I never go alone. It’s, uh, well . . .”

His reputation regarding his dating life wasn’t unknown to me, and I was rather curious how he planned to dig himself out of this hole.

Whipping around, I found him still in the hall, as if there was an unspoken rule about him not being allowed to cross the line into my bedroom. Maybe there was, and I just didn’t know it. I wouldn’t put it past my brothers to have their own version of the seven deadly sins as guidelines for things Hudson could never commit when it came to me.

“It’s expected that you always have a date with you?” I politely offered a reason when he couldn’t seem to cough up the truth—that he was a playboy like Alessandro once was.

“Something like that.” He fingered the knot of his tie, rotating his neck. “But, uh, if you’re uncomfortable going, you should sit this op out.”

“No, no.” My gaze skated over to my bed as I murmured, “I want to come.”

“And I want you to come.” There was a subtle rasp of sexiness in his tone that had me biting my lip.

The number of times I wanted that man to make me come, yeah, well, I’d lost count.

Brows drawn together, he grumbled, “I meant, I want you to come to the party.”

---