Page 24 of Covert Temptation

She wasn’t wealthy. But having these things reminded her how far she’d come from those childhood days of shaking in the dark while her parents broke everything within reach and punched holes in the walls.

Scraping her fingers through her hair, she made up her mind to stop wallowing in her own self-pity, to get up and fight another day.

This day happened to bring pizza, and she couldn’t be more thrilled to indulge in the treat she’d been craving for weeks while locked in that apartment.

She walked into the living room again, her attention shifting to Dante’s laptop, but he’d closed all the tabs and the screen was blank. Drifting to the window, she folded her arms and stared out at the still world outside.

The wind shifted, rattling the windowpane in its frame.

She jumped and hurried away from the window. She plopped down on the sofa and snatched up the TV remote.

Watch TV,Dante had told her. Like she hadn’t already spent more than enough time rotting her brain the past few weeks.

After turning on a cooking show for background noise, she stared at the show, not really seeing it, but listening hard to all the unfamiliar noises of the unfamiliar house.

The cities where she and Alyssa stayed on a regular basis never truly went dark, and in the diplomatic world, she was never alone for long. But here? The Hudson Valley seemed to fold in on itself, swallowing light, movement and even the sound of her own breathing.

A tap on the door sent her launching to her feet and whirling, prepared to run. Her brain churned with scenarios of attacks even as her heart took off at Mach speed.

With a forced effort to slow her wild heartbeat, she counted the twenty-three steps to the front door.

“Kennedy?” Dante. Back with the food and supplies. His voice came muffled. “It’s me.”

Her fingers tingled as the blood flowed back into them. She quickly kicked the wedge out from under the door and unlockedtwo locks—the original and the one Dante installed when they arrived.

When she opened the door, the wind blew over the pizza boxes he held, wafting the delicious scent of sauce and spices to her.

She let out a squeal and reached to take the boxes. As she did, her fingers brushed his—cool from being outdoors. Rough. But much softer than she expected from a hard man like Dante.

Their gazes locked for a single throbbing heartbeat.

His eyes were dark, nearly black. Not cold right now, though she knew exactly how cold they could be.

“Finally,” she breezed out in a snarky tone to break the moment. “I was about to chew on the coffee table.”

With the pizza boxes balanced on her palm, she carried them into the living room and set them on the coffee table, aware that every muscle felt just a little too stiff after her worry-filled time alone.

“It was a long wait. The guy who runs the joint moves slower than Congress.”

She let out an unexpected snort and looked up into Dante’s eyes. “It looks like you ordered everything on the menu.”

“Pretty much.” He set the bags he carried next to the pizza boxes and began unpacking small cups filled with dipping sauces, trays tented with foil and something that appeared to be turnovers, though they were a bit misshapen.

He paused, meeting her gaze. The directness of it made her stomach tighten. He wasn’t just looking at her—he was lookingintoher.

Several heartbeats passed, each one louder than the last.

“I’ll grab some plates and put the milk in the fridge.” For such a big man, he moved with precision, every muscle tightening and releasing in sync like an athlete in an arena.

She watched him walk into the kitchen before letting out the breath she was holding.

In the time he was gone, something had changed in the air between them—charged it with a different electricity that she couldn’t explain.

He returned with two paper plates and a stack of napkins. When he sank to the sofa beside her, she was suddenly hyperaware of how close he was and the power harnessed in that machine he called a body.

They ate in silence, with only the sounds of crunching on pizza crust and Dante’s fork scraping the bottom of the cannoli container.

“You really did get a lot of food.”

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