have to excuse us, so I didn’t bother. I just steered him away from the wild hyena women and through the crowd, half enjoying the angry looks they shot my way.
A victory is a victory. The venue is irrelevant.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the rescue,” Holt said. “But I’m forced to ask, in the interest of self-preservation … exactly how well armed are you right now?”
I laughed, and it wasn’t even forced. Probably because even with the smile hovering on the edge of his expression, his joke wasn’t really a joke—he was actually asking.
“Guns leave unsightly bulges in an evening gown.” Which I was only wearing under direct orders. “Tonight, what you see is what you get.” Jake had made it clear that I had not yet earned back the privilege of carrying weapons in his territory, after letting him get shot. “But don’t worry, there’s enough security in here to rival the U.S. Mint. No one could possibly get an unauthorized gun through the door.”
“I wasn’t worried about getting shot,” Holt said, as we wound our way through the crowd. “Perhaps ritualistically castrated and dismembered …”
“Okay, I’m sorry about the threat,” I said, though that wasn’t really true. “But they say you can’t underestimate the value of a good first impression.”
He stopped walking to frown at me. “Your idea of a good first impression is to threaten a man’s groin and his life in one breath?”
I shrugged. “Why? Would taking a breath in between improve the delivery?”
“I suppose not.” He drained the last inch of champagne from his glass, then set it on an empty tray as a waiter passed. Then he turned back to me, his expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement. “You’re not what I expected from Jake Tower’s envoy.”
“What did you expect?” I was honestly curious.
“Someone like her.” Holt nodded at something over my shoulder, and I turned to find Nina, Jake’s personal assistant, schmoozing with the lieutenant governor, one hand on his arm, her gaze locked with his as she laughed at whatever asinine story he’d just told. I’d heard every story he had. They were all asinine.
I started to ask Holt if he’d rather have Nina show him around—surely Jake wouldn’t make me play recruiter if the recruit didn’t want me around after all—but he was already speaking again, this time watching a group clustered near the windows on the west wall. “Or someone like your sister.”
I glanced at him in surprise, then followed his line of sight again to where Kenley stood against the wall, Jonah hovering near her like a kid eager to show off his prom date, and I realized Jake had probably told his brother to stick close to her, to remind me of what was at stake with this job.
Everything. That’s what was at stake.
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
