Shadow Bound

Kenley and our brother, Kris, were all I had left, and Kris had his hands full with our grandmother. Kenley was my responsibility, and I couldn’t let her down. Even if that meant conning some clueless asshole into service at Tower’s whims.

“Kenley would make a terrible tour guide,” I said, more to myself than to him, still watching my sister play the wallflower. She wouldn’t give Jonah any excuse to touch her. “She doesn’t get out much.”

“Out of what?” Holt asked, and I forced my mind back to the conversation at hand.

“Outside. Jake keeps her close at hand. Because of the nature of her work.” And too late I realized how that probably sounded.

“Your sister lives here? In Tower’s house? Do they …? Um …?”

I scowled. “No, my sister isn’t screwing the boss.” Nothing could be further from the truth. “She’s his top Binder—the only one he really uses anymore—so he keeps her close to keep her safe. She has a small apartment near here.” And she was always under guard.

“Oh.” Holt looked relieved, and briefly I wondered why he cared who Jake was screwing. Was he a prude or a perv?

“I used to live here, though,” I said, picking at the seams of his reaction. “In this house.”

“You used to …?” He glanced from me to Jake and back, and I could practically see the gears turning behind his eyes as he tried to puzzle out a polite way to ask a crude question.

I rarely bother with polite. Makes things much simpler.

“Were you and he …?” Holt let the question trail off to its obvious conclusion.

“Do you ever finish a sentence?” I asked, and his cheeks darkened slightly as his brows rose in challenge.

“Do you ever think before you speak?”

I blinked, surprised. Jake said impulse control was my biggest character flaw. I’d always assumed he meant my tendency to hit first, then survey the situation as an after thought, but Holt was clearly caught off guard by the verbal version of that.

“That’s your problem.” I backed slowly toward the foyer, leaving him to follow. “You think too much.”

“I don’t consider caution and forethought a problem.”

“It takes you forever to order at a restaurant, doesn’t it? And to pick out a tie?” I stepped closer and flicked his obnoxious little bow tie, then turned and stepped into the foyer, desperately hoping Kenley’s stupid stilettos didn’t seize that moment to betray me on the slick marble. Why do women insist on crippling themselves with footwear obviously designed by sadists?

Holt caught up with me, his mouth open to reply, but I spoke over him. “I tell you what. If you can dig up enough nerve to ask what you really want to know, I’ll answer the question.”

“Nerve isn’t the issue.” He stared straight into my eyes, practically daring me to argue. “What makes you think I care, one way or another?”

“The fact that you think too much. You overanalyze everything, like life’s one big puzzle you can solve, if you can just find the pattern, and now you’re thinking that neurotic tendency will help you figure out where you stand with one of the most powerful men in the country. You asked for a blonde liaison, and he gave you a blonde, so you’re thinking—correctly—that that means he really wants you.”

“You’re on track so far,” he admitted, amusement peeking around the edges of his skepticism.

“I know.”

His eyes narrowed. “You’re a Reader now?”

I almost laughed. “Hell no, I’m still just a Traveler.” Readers, like Julia Tower, read the truth in a person’s words. I read people. Their posture. Their expressions. The things their brains didn’t even know their bodies were saying. That was the one quality I had that might actually come in handy for a recruiter.

Holt looked relieved, and I wasn’t surprised. Readers make people nervous. Everyone lies, and no one wants to be called on it.

“So what else am I thinking?” he asked, and his grin said this had become a game.

I was not a fan of games, but when I played, I liked to win. So I swallowed my trepidation over the direction the discussion was headed and pressed forward, wearing my game face.

“You know Jake wants you. But now it’s a little more complicated than that, right? If I’m Jake’s sloppy seconds and you take a big bite, it’s gonna look like you’re satisfied with his leftovers. And that’s going to lower your value. But on the other hand, he’s given you what you asked for, and turning your nose up at a gift from Jake Tower could look like a massive insult. And you wanna play hard-to-get, not difficult-to-stomach, right?”

Holt’s green eyes were huge. “And you think I overanalyze things?”

But I was right. I could see that much in the irritated way he crossed both arms over his chest, wrinkling his expensive jacket. He’d expected to study Jake, and his offer, and his people, but he hadn’t expected a common escort to study him back. Much less be good at it.

I shrugged and smiled, then turned away from him and started across the foyer, calling softly over one shoulder, “Fine. Then don’t ask.”

His shoes squeaked after me on the marble, and I knew I had him. “Okay, I give up,” he called, grabbing my arm from behind. I froze at his touch and had to remind myself that it meant nothing. I was flirting with him—albeit under orders to seduce him on behalf of the entire syndicate—so I couldn’t justify freaking out over evidence that I was getting the job done.

But neither could I stop myself from pulling my arm from his grip, though I tried to disguise the movement by ducking into an alcove, drawing us both out of view from most of the rest of the party. “I admit it,” he said, stepping close enough that I wanted to back up, but there was nowhere left to go. “I want to know.”

With the wall at my back and Holt blocking my path, I felt like the world was closing in on me. My pulse raced with encroaching panic. But I’d brought us here, out of sight, and I was still in control of this little word game.

“Then grow some balls and ask,” I said, staring straight up into his eyes, silently daring him.

One eyebrow arched in response to my challenge. “Were you sleeping with your boss?”

I shook my head solemnly. “I have never once fallen asleep in Jake Tower’s company.” In fact, it was tempting to try to blink one eye at a time when he was around, so I could keep the other one on him at all times.

Holt rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I know what you asked.” I couldn’t tell if he was adorably old-fashioned, hopelessly shy, or simply reluctant to offend a syndicate representative with a question about a very powerful man’s personal life. “If that’s not what you wanted to hear, then say what you mean.”

“You’re bossy.”

I laughed. “And you’re nosy, so get it over with. No more euphemisms. Bite the bullet, or I’m gonna have to tell Jake you don’t have the balls for this job.” That was a total bluff, of course. Jake would like him better with neither a mouth, nor the balls to use it.

That time when Holt frowned, I couldn’t tell if he was pissed off or intrigued. Until he stepped closer, leaving no room between us at all, and I realized he was a little of both. “Did you fuck your boss?” he demanded, his voice lower and grittier than it’d been a moment before.

“Hell no.” I slid along the wall, sidestepping him, and my heart didn’t slow to normal speed until I’d regained personal space, and both flight and fight seemed possible again. Just in case. “Jake doesn’t screw around on his wife.” He wouldn’t, even if he weren’t contractually prohibited from touching another woman. At least, that was the rumor. “And FYI, he’ll have you shot for looking at her for more than a few seconds at a time, unless she’s talking directly to you.”

“That’s crazy.”

I shrugged. “That’s love.”

That hint of a grin was back. “Isn’t that what I said?”

“Ah, a cynic.” I sank onto a gold-padded bench against one wall of the foyer. “You may fit in here after all.”

Holt sat next to me. “So, why did you live here, if you weren’t … with him?”

And, the euphemisms were back. “Jake used to keep a small staff on hand at all times. But he moved everyone out a few weeks ago.” The day after I’d accidentally punched a hole in his home defense system and gotten him shot. “Now it’s just his family, the nanny, and whichever guards are currently on duty.”

“Smart.” Holt nodded thoughtfully. “And he really doesn’t cheat on his wife? At all?”