worry your pretty little head. I’m not up to anything nefarious.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
He held out his hand. “Let’s put the past behind us, Emma.”
She eyed his hand as if it were covered in fungus. “Right, like I’m going to touch you so you can get a read on me.”
All agents with PARA, current and former, were psychic. The majority were either empathic—those able to sense emotions and feelings from other people through touch—or clairvoyant—those able to communicate with ghosts and sense important things from objects or places without relying on the usual five senses.
In their partnership, Ryan was the people person and Emma dealt with all the other stuff. His empathic ability had never been very strong and he had to work hard to get any kind of reading at all. He also had to do it through skin to skin contact. Some empaths were strong enough to get a sense of another just from being in the same room with them. Not Ryan. He was a one on a scale of one to five, maybe a two on a good day. His gift was more like strong intuition rather than total psychic ability. But he’d made it work for himself and his low-end ability had never really given him any problems on the job.
He was much better with cars, really. Tinkering with cars, sensing what made them work—or not work—was his true talent. And his true love. It wasn’t related to his psychic ability, but it might as well have been. He felt he had a sixth sense about cars. But that hadn’t been put to much use as a PARA agent.
One thing he had going for himself as an empath was that other empaths couldn’t get a read on him. This was both a blessing and a curse since it meant that his secrets remained secrets.
“Read you?” He gave her an innocent look. “I wouldn’t do something shady like that without your permission.”
“You don’t need to read me. I can tell you what I’m feeling—disgusted. And a little nauseous.”
“The shrimp pâté is a bit questionable. I’d stay away from the caviar as well. Nasty stuff.”
Her cheeks went a bit flushed. He was surprised that he seemed to be able to affect her just with a few words. She must really hate him, even after all this time.
He wished the feeling was mutual.
Since he’d been fired from PARA for theft, he’d worked a lot of jobs to make ends meet. In a week he was scheduled to move down to Florida to work with his brother in a high-end garage taking care of luxury vehicles. It was a dream job for him.
However, he had a little bit of business to clear up first before he left.
Emma looked up at him. He was six-two, so even with the highest heels she was still at a height disadvantage. But what she lacked in stature, she made up for in attitude. Their gazes locked and he felt something stir inside him. Desire. He found her just as gorgeous as he ever had and she affected him whether he liked it or not. It put him at an extreme disadvantage if he was trying to keep his cool.
“If you try to steal anything from Xavier Franklin tonight,” she said slowly and evenly, “there will be consequences. I don’t know how you managed to get your hands on an invitation, but the security for this party is very tight. PARA didn’t press charges when you stole from them, but Xavier would.”
Now that was a low blow. What happened six months ago was still constantly on his mind. He didn’t need the reminder.
Ryan’s mood darkened as if a storm cloud had drifted overhead. “No, PARA didn’t press charges. After all, who’s going to believe a self-proclaimed supernatural investigation agency that says they’re missing a stash of enchanted tea cups or grandfather clocks? I know the board of directors likes to keep PARA business private.”
“All I’m saying—”
“I get it, Emma. Stealing is wrong.”
Her fierce expression faltered. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. I washed my hands of you a long time ago.”
“I remember.” Her words made something sharp and painful twist in his chest. He’d valued their friendship more than she ever knew. Enough that he’d started casually dating another woman, Charlotte, when he began developing deeper feelings for Emma. It had made sense at the time. His relationships—they didn’t last long. They never had. And if he’d had a fling with Emma, it would have ended the friendship he valued so much. A friendship that ended anyway. Maybe it had never been as strong as he would have liked to believe.
He pushed the grin back onto his face, though it felt as false as it probably looked. “Don’t worry about me, Em. I have things under control. Enjoy the party.”
Ryan turned to walk up the stairs to the terrace. He was now in desperate need of some fresh air. Emma thought he was a thief who’d manipulated her and shamelessly lied to her. That he was the sort of man who would steal potentially dangerous items and sell them for profit. Your average enchanted tea cup went for a whole lot of green on the black market and there were literally hundreds of eager buyers worldwide who had vast collections of supernatural paraphernalia hidden away in their mansions. It was a booming business.
But there was a big problem with Emma’s theory. Despite what she believed, he’d never stolen anything from PARA’s vaults.
Never.
The evidence, however, proved otherwise and had gotten him swiftly fired without a chance to properly plead his case. Since he was an empath—even a low-end one—there was no way to gauge if he was telling the truth when he’d denied the charges.
Ryan knew he’d been set up. And his life and career had been ruined because of it.
That was why he’d come here tonight. He’d crashed Xavier Franklin’s ritzy masquerade party because he suspected the billionaire was one of those supernatural collectors. If he could find hard evidence of that fact, he might discover who’d been providing Franklin, and others like him, with merchandise.
Ryan was all ready to start his new life down in Florida at a job he knew he was going to love. But first, something deep inside of him was driving him to clear his name. Otherwise this stain on his character would never let him rest. He didn’t want distractions or regrets to haunt him as he embarked on his future.
And yes, he wanted to prove to Emma Black, once and for all, that he wasn’t a thief. That he wasn’t a liar. He wanted to see that trust in her eyes again one last time before he walked away and never looked back. He wanted her to feel sorry that she ever doubted him in the first place.
She’d been totally wrong about him and he’d prove it.
However, based on their latest little confrontation, he knew that was going to be one hell of an uphill battle.
2
AN HOUR LATER, Emma sat on the stiff, black leather couch in the library where she’d been told to wait for Xavier and tried not to think about what happened with Ryan.
She tried. She wasn’t all that successful.
One brief conversation and he was suddenly all she could think about. Maybe she should seek him out again and get more answers from him. Or maybe she should keep trying to forget she ever
