them to give you their full attention, or to be more comfortable with you, matching their tone was the most effective way to accomplish it. Voice and tone were incredibly powerful tools when you knew how to use them, as so many hackers did when they were chatting someone up to get information they needed.
He shrugged, sliding a furtive look in Jennie’s direction. “Friday night. We have a date. I don’t want to give her a shot at canceling.”
Actually he was the one thinking of canceling; he’d thought about it all the way upstairs to the office. He’d rehearsed in his mind what he would say, and how he would say it. But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to break his date with Jennie.
Sarah shot him a skeptical look, and Nathan knew he’d been made. “Don’t try your little con-artist tricks with me, Reilly.” She poked him in the chest, hard, for emphasis.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, and…ow.”
“Just stop playing games and go say good-morning. The woman hasn’t taken her eyes off you since you got here. It’s making me nuts how you two are dancing around this—just get it over with already, will ya?”
Sarah turned and strode off, and he wondered exactly what she and Jennie had said to each other. As he approached Jennie, her scent washed over him. He was so damned attracted to her.
He’d been on cloud nine about that fact until this morning. What he had learned today should have put him off completely, dampened his desire for her—something—but it hadn’t. He wanted her. Bad.
She had presence and a womanly sensuality that the twenty-something women he’d dated up to this point lacked. He hadn’t so much as asked another woman out since he’d set his sights on Jennie, so his long-denied libido was arguing aggressively with his common sense.
He idled down to stand beside where she sat, leaning back against her desk and tilting a little sideways to get her to look at him. It was their morning ritual. A dance of sorts, as Sarah had described it.
His mom had always said that he seemed to like things more when they weren’t easy. Probably his stubborn nature, which Ma always blamed on his father. Of course, his ma was twice as stubborn as any of them, though she’d never admit it.
He reached out, pushing a silky curl back behind Jennie’s ear. Her breath hitched a little—she wasn’t immune to him—and he smiled.
“Hey, gorgeous. Thirty-two hours and counting.”
“Morning, Nathan.”
He loved the way she said his name, even when she was trying to sound completely unimpressed. If Sarah hadn’t told him otherwise, she could have pulled it off.
He watched her closely, taking in her full sensuous lips, her flawless olive skin and those eyes…he would talk nonsense with her all day just to watch her expressions change, to study how her mouth moved. For a split second, he imagined her full lips moving under his and sucked in a breath.
“Thank you for the dahlias, they’re gorgeous, though I have no idea where you managed to find dahlias at this time of year. It must have cost a fortune.”
“Well worth it.”
“What, just to have dinner with me?” Her tone was one of disbelief.
“No just about that.”
She sat back in her chair, watching him with a curious gaze. “Nathan, why are you so intent on dating me? You’re a handsome young guy. You must have girls falling at your feet.”
“But not the one I want. Not yet.”
She laughed, and he ignored the emphasis she placed on young—he might be a few years younger, but he was more than up to the task of making Jennie Snow feel like the woman she was. To him, the age difference meant nothing. When he was fifty, she’d be fifty-five—so what? Wouldn’t matter then, didn’t matter now.
As if she could read his thoughts, her expression became more serious. “Nathan, you know this is just dinner, right?”
Glancing around to ensure no one was listening, he leaned forward. He took her hand and pulled it up to his mouth, where he feathered a kiss over her knuckles, a move that sent fire scorching down into his gut, and beyond.
“Let’s just see what happens, Jen. We’re attracted to each other. You know it. I know it.” He held her gaze, returning her hand with a smile, and saw a slight one of her own form. She couldn’t deny the attraction that was between them. She didn’t say another word.
He loved what she did to him. How just touching her had wiped his mind clear of everything but the need for her.
All the same there was no way for him to ignore what he had just been informed of—Jennie Snow was not Jennie Snow at all, but former Mafia princess Maria Castone. There was also a chance she was a Mafia mole planted in their department, a spy.
“Nathan, what’s wrong?”
He swore silently to himself for allowing his troubled thoughts to show. It could be dangerous for both of them.
“Nothing at all. I guess I’d better get to work before Ian has my ass for getting a late start.”
She continued to look at him with that perceptive gaze—the woman could see too deeply; he’d have to be careful. As much as the assignment to investigate Jennie sucked, he didn’t want to blow it. With any luck, he had the opportunity to prove her innocence, and he hoped to hell that she was innocent.
He didn’t care about her past, who she was. But if she was a mole, if she was passing information back to her family, then they both had a serious problem. Because in spite of everything they’d told him, and everything he knew, it didn’t stop him from wanting her.
2
“SO DO YOU KNOW anything new about the puttana?” Bruno Castone stuffed his face with his favorite rigatoni and sausage, then chewed slowly, intently. He looked over expectantly at his nephew, Tony, who winced—just slightly—at Bruno’s use of the slur in reference to his sister. It didn’t escape Bruno’s notice.
“What? You have a problem with my language? She’s not your sister anymore, she gave that up when she ran to the feds, turned against us.”
“She might’ve been pinched. We don’t know she went willingly, Uncle.”
“There’s no other way to go. She could have come to me, come to us, but instead I ended up a guest of the state thanks to her. She took seven years of my life.” He cleared his palate with a glass of Chianti, and set his fork down on the table a little too hard, repeating his question. “So, do we know? Did you find her?”
“Not exactly, though we have a plan. They’ve got her hidden somewhere, deep. We’ve leaked some information to see if we can flush her out.”
Bruno’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of information? How come you didn’t clear this with me, first?”
Tony shook his head, his tone reassuring. “Misinformation, I should’ve said, Uncle. Don’t worry so much. I thought that if we ‘accidentally’ leaked that we were getting information from inside their program—from someone who was only pretending to be a witness—they might lead us to her. We have our inside guy whisper in a few ears, and he’ll see what they do with the information. If they think she’s been reporting back to us all this time, they’ll contact her and, bingo, we find her.”
Bruno was silent for a long moment, then smiled widely, satisfied by the news and the pasta. “You’re a smart guy, Tony. I always said that’s what we need nowadays, guys who have smarts, more than your father and I had. We had to live by wits and fists. You stay on this, and tell me the second anything changes. Paul G. is on my ass, and I don’t need one more problem.”
“Paul making any moves on us?”
“He’s always hemming me in, questioning