Page 14 of The Art of You

“Hudson. Where are your eyes supposed to be?”

Not on your legs.

At her gasp, I jerked my attention to the road ahead, realizing I was close to swerving into the oncoming lane. Thankfully, no one was there.

And I was done talking about the damn weather. “You’veyet to answer me,” I reminded her, trying to get things back on topic.

“Oh, was there a question you asked?”

The sass in her tone took effort that time. I knew her well enough to know she was faking that bit of attitude to dodge whatever it was she was scared to share.

Before I had a chance to demand an answer from her again, my phone rang, and I couldn’t forward this one to voicemail. It was Special Agent Adelina Cattaneo, the one I’d called in for help at the last minute for the kidnapping case. The music stopped so the call could come through over CarPlay.

“Hey, everything good? Lola okay?” I asked Adelina upon answering, hating Bella had earned herself more time to evade our conversation.

“Yeah, she’s a tough girl. She owes you all her life,” Adelina was quick to respond.

Having moved to the U.S. later in life to attend college, her Italian accent was more prominent than the Costas’. She’d become a citizen with one goal in mind: become an FBI agent to help find her sister who’d been kidnapped when she was three. Sadly, she never found her twin, but she’d saved a lot of other lives working for the Bureau.

“Will you catch hell from your boss for not giving him the heads-up about the op tonight?” The last thing I wanted was for her to get into trouble.

“Not much he can say. Your father’s got my back. Plus, in the director’s eyes, this is a win for the Bureau. He can act like the FBI really saved the daughter of a high-profile diplomat and all that. You know howthat goes.”

“Yeah, I don’t miss that shit,” I admitted. “Did my team give you a heads-up about my concerns regarding the ambassador’s security detail? It’s only a gut feeling, but we should keep aneye on them. Dig deeper into their backgrounds since we’re not under the gun to save Lola now.”

“I think it was Constantine Costa who called me. He’s, uh, an intense one, huh?”

“To say the least,” I said while glancing at Bella. She was staring out her window, making it impossible to get a read on her.

“You alone right now?” Adelina asked tentatively.

No, the sexy bane of my existence is with me.

I’d swear Bella heard my thoughts. She shifted in her seat and rolled her eyes before flicking her wrist toward the road. There was a wreck up ahead.

“No, I’m with Isabella Costa,” I finally remembered to answer. “She attended the party with me. You know, for appearances’ sake.” Thankfully, nothing went sideways tonight, and Bella had never been at risk.

“Ah, I see,” Adelina mused, probably reading more into my comment than she should have.

I got off the parkway to take a back road so I could avoid the standstill traffic.

“Well, when the dust settles from all of this, let’s get lunch. There’s something I want to tell you.”

“A good something?” I never knew when it came to Adelina.

“Definitely a good something.”

Thank God for that.The woman deserved it.

After we exchanged a few more words and ended the call, I pulled up Google Maps on the dash to find a new route.

When I was all set, Bella began scrolling the music app for another channel. “I know she’s FBI, but how well do you know her? You two sound close-close.”

Was that jealousy in her voice? Not that there was anything to be jealous about. “We were at Quantico together,then assigned to the same FBI field office here in New York. We stayed friends after I left the Bureau.” Not on any kind of deep level, though.

Adelina didn’t know my secrets, and I didn’t know hers. She didn’t even know I was running private security ops on the side until yesterday.

In truth, though, I didn’t really make it a habit of having female friends, especially after Bianca died. The only exception I’d made was sitting next to me now.

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