Page 8 of The Art of You

I paid the bartender, offering a generous tip, then turned to see Bella scanning the room while sipping her cocktail.

So much for our drinks only being props.

Once I had my scotch, I gave in and took a healthy swallow, nearly dropping the glass when I could’ve sworn I saw an old SEAL teammate.

No, not possible.

I focused on the crowded corner of the room, feeling like I’d seen a ghost even though he wasn’t dead.

“Are you sure you’re good? Did I say something while dancing to upset you? Like, do you have something against Patrick Swayze?” Her tone was more teasing than anything else, and she saved me from nearly falling into the past, to my last deployment in Afghanistan.

I shook my head. Not really an answer but it was the best I could do. I looked around the room again for a man whose name hadn’t been on the guest list, or I’d have sure as hell noticed.

Losing my mind.I focused back on the beautiful woman before me. “Nothing against Swayze, no.” I lifted my glass to my mouth, then hesitated, deciding drinking was a bad idea after my hallucination, and the glass should remain nothing more than a prop in my hand.

“Well, glad you don’t have anything against him. I might have to unfriend you on Facebook if you did,” she said softly.

“I don’t have Facebook,” I reminded her, taking two seconds too long to realize she’d been joking.I’m still strung-the-fuck-tight. Walks down memory lane could do that, though. Especially remembering anything from 2010.

Bella set her free hand on my forearm while angling her head. “I’m going to ask you again, so don’t get annoyed. But are you okay?”

“What? You think I’m lying the way you were to me by the Porsche?”

She rolled her lips inward as if worried her thoughts were conspiring against her, and she might slip and tell me the truth. Tell me the real reason she’d taken so long with the zipper in her bedroom.

“Exactly what I thought,” I admitted, then set aside my drink, too tempted to toss back the rest of the scotch in an attempt to help block out the memories from my past I couldn’t quite shake now.

Bella placed her drink on the bartop table next to mine and pushed up in her heels to whisper in my ear, “I need a distraction so I’m not so distracted by something else so I can focus on the mission. Does that make sense?”

Somehow? Perfectly.Losing both my mind and control, I banded my arm around her waist and slid my hand up to her bare back, allowing my palm to move higher beneath her hair and to the nape of her neck.

Eyes on mine, she breathily said my name as I continued to caress her skin like we were two lost souls searching to be found and completely alone in space. She shuddered beneath my touch, arching into me.Respondingto the connection, the same as I was.

“Oh, I see what you’re doing,” she murmured. “I asked you for a distraction, and you’re giving me one.”

That wasn’t what I’d meant to do, but she was right. Consider us both distracted.

“You two okay?” With those three words in our ears, Constantine splintered us apart, breaking a moment we couldn’t have.

I cleared my throat, backed away from her, and discreetly tapped the device well-hidden in my left ear to unmute it. “She’s nervous about the op. Calming her down.”

“Yeah, well, the target is here. Not in the room yet, but on the property,” he let us know, unable to hide the suspicious bite to his tone.

“Roger that.” Muting our conversation again, I set my hand on the bartop table, waiting for our target to make an appearance. When my eyes fell back to hers, and I found her staring off into the distance with a lost look, I couldn’t help but press. “Tell me why you needed the distraction.”

“I thought we established I?—”

“We established nothing.” I heaved out a deep breath,worried about her secrets, remembering what happened when the last female Costa kept a secret from me.

Now Bianca was dead, and if she had opened up to me fourteen years ago, maybe I could have helped her. Maybe she’d be alive and happily married, living her best life.

When she continued staring everywhere but at me, I asked, “What’s wrong?” My words were gruff. Like two harsh sounds poking through the stuffy, political air.

Her shoulders sagged from the weight of whatever lie she was no doubt about to offer. “Just felt like I was being watched earlier when we got into the Porsche.”

There was a hole the size of Texas in that one sentence. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said.”

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