I shrugged. "You'd be surprised. I don't sound like an Interpol agent most of the time. Much to my father's chagrin."
His smile bloomed, and he aimed it down at me. "Let me guess, Daddy's girl wanted to make the old man proud?"
I laughed. "I’ve hardly made him proud. Hell, it’s hard to do that when he keeps me away from most of the bigger cases. He's my father, so I know he worries about me. I just wish that I could, you know, spread my wings. I wish I could really grow. I just always feel like he's ready to clip my wings in case I do something just a little too dangerous."
He slowed his pace, taking us to the square. "Are your feet okay? Do you want to go back?"
I shook my head. "No. I like this. The weather is beautiful, and the company is okay."
He made a shocked face and clutched his chest. "Just okay? I'll have you know I've been told my company is stellar."
"You know what? I actually believe that."
"As you should." He chuckled softly and then took me back to the topic. "So why follow in his footsteps if you think he'll never let you blossom?"
I shrugged. "When Mom died, I lost my person, you know? I was eleven. And Dad tried, but he had no idea what to do for me. He just wanted to be on a chase. And we honestly didn't know much about each other. When Mom was alive, he would leave home in New York and off he would go, whether it was for the FBI or some international task force or Interpol. Then she was gone, and he had to come home and take care of me. He was going to leave his job, but I told him not to. That nothing had to change."
I frowned at myself. I never talked about that time in my life. Why was it so damn easy to talk to him? Still, I added, "I just made a choice, you know, that since he was all I had, I was going all-in with him. I was going to be exactly the kind of kid that he wanted, so that being with me was not going to be a chore or a burden."
"He's your father, Nyla. You wouldn't have been a chore or a burden." East’s voice was so soft. I could hear the pity in his words.
"Well, tell that to an eleven-year-old. So I changed everything about myself to be more like him. I just wanted him to love me. And lucky for me, I love the chase too. It turns out, I’m a lot more like him than I thought."
His sharp green gaze narrowed on mine. "Then why do you seem sad?"
I brushed my hair up my face, pulling it up and tying it into a bun. It gave me something to do under his intense scrutiny. "Um, because while the drive is there for the same reasons, my approach is different. I'm impulsive, too emotional. I go with my gut, and when I can taste a mystery in the air, I cannot let go. That is where Dad and I are the same. The case he was on when my mother died is still unsolved, even today. And he's been after that case for thirty years. Thirty years of chasing a ghost. Dad has never given up looking for him, the one that got away. He’s obsessed about it."
"That's a long time to chase after something you never catch."
"I know, right? I'm not sure that I could do it."
We stopped at a bridge overlooking the water, and I sucked in a sharp breath as I watched a pair of swans swim by. "Oh my God, they're beautiful."
He nodded. "Yeah, this is actually a manmade canal between a couple of the hotels. But don't get too close. Swans are assholes."
"You know, I’ve heard that."
I watched the stately pair swim by with several downy gray awkward-looking babies behind them. When I turned back to East with a smile, his eyes were warm as he watched me, and my belly flipped. "What are you looking at?"
"A beautiful woman."
"Pfft, how many women have you called beautiful this week alone?"
He shook his head. "Just the one. You should probably know something about me, Nyla. I only say what I mean."
Heat licked at my cheeks, and I directed my attention toward the water. "Yeah, well, I don't have a lot of experience with that."
"Not everyone is, your boss," he said softly.
"I know." I lifted my gaze, focusing on him again, and the tension between us pulled tight. Despite my brain giving the command to my feet to turn around and head back on the path they'd traveled, the idiot that I was swayed forward.
"Nyla, do you know you smell incredible?” he murmured. “I've been thinking about your scent since that first night I saw you."
"East, this is probably a bad idea," I whispered. But I didn’t step away.
"I promised I wasn't going to touch you until you asked me to." That deep, velvet voice was a caress, teasing, stroking.
I laughed. "Why do you have to make this weird? There's moonlight, it's beautiful, and there are some freaking swans, so just kiss me already."
What are you doing?
I was in Monaco. It was so easy to pretend. And maybe, just maybe, for a moment, I wanted to be wanted. Was that so wrong?
Yes, you will regret this.
For once, I didn't care.
"I would like the record to show that you asked me to kiss you."
The smile made my lips twitch even as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine.
East
I didn't want to stop. She tasted like sunshine and Sunday mornings and bliss. Hell, I didn't think I could stop. She tasted so fucking good. All those nights I had lain there staring at my ceiling, swearing I imagined her smell, now I knew. I had imagined
