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elevator. He knew it was a piss-poor decision but he needed to taste her. Wanted to feel her tongue moving against his. He groaned in the back of his throat as her hands came up around his neck. She arched into him and then slowly drew back.
    He let her go because he knew he had to. But that one taste wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy him. He wanted more of this woman. And now he’d endangered her life.
    “Daniel,” she said. Just his name falling from her lips, and he knew he wanted to hear it again. Hear it when they were both naked and he was buried hilt-deep in her silky body.
    “I can’t believe that bitch got away,” he said, forcing his mind off the images of Charity in his arms.
    “We’ll find her. I got the tag and Anna’s already running the plates.”
    “It’ll be a dead end.”
    “Even dead ends have clues,” she said.
    Her voice was firm and he felt her resolve. “I’m firing you, remember? Why do you care?”
    “It’s what I do. It’s what we do for all of our clients,” she said.
    “Is that all I am to you? Another client?”
    “We hardly know each other.”
    “I guess that’s my answer.”
    “What do you want me to say, Daniel? You intrigue me, but this isn’t going anywhere. Right now you’re looking for a place to channel your rage.”
    He hated how clearly she saw him. So many people were content just to see the surface man. The quasi-civilized façade he presented to the world. But not Charity. He suspected that was because she had a mask of her own.
    But he didn’t really care why. He didn’t like anyone to see the parts of himself he hid. And he knew just the way to drive her away. And he needed to drive her away. He needed her angry and walking out of his life. Because a split second before she’d shoved him to the ground, he realized that she’d take a bullet for him.
    “I am,” he said. “Could I tempt you back up to my room? I think an hour in bed with you—”
    “Don’t. I’m not going to let you use sexist comments to drive me away.”
    “I don’t have to; you are off the job anyway.”
    “Not until I see you safely to your jet.”
    “Mr. Williams? Ms. Keone? We really need your statements.”
    Daniel walked away from Charity and didn’t look back. He followed the officer into the hotel and through the lobby. He was hyper-aware of everything going on around him. He searched the faces in the crowd—knowing Sekijima well enough to know that he’d have people planted there. People in place in case his assassin failed.
    But the faces were all unremarkable. Some tourists, some businessmen, no one who stood out. Which was exactly what he’d expect from Sekijima and his people. All the same, Daniel studied them and memorized the faces. Sekijima didn’t have unlimited resources and Daniel knew from experience that Sekijima’s inner circle would be small.
    “Do you recognize anyone?” Charity asked under her breath as they moved through the lobby.
    “Not yet.”
    “Do you know who’s threatening you?” she asked.
    Her insight made him realize that he was wasting an opportunity to use her talents. She saw him too clearly, and he didn’t want her to know the real man he had buried beneath years of pretending to be wealthy and sophisticated. But he wouldn’t mind using her special abilities to track down Sekijima and his killers.
    He hurried his pace and glanced over his shoulder one last time before they entered the hallway behind the front desk. He glanced not at Charity but at the sea of faces.
    One of these faces, Daniel would see again. And when he did, he’d act.
     
    Charity couldn’t get a handle on Daniel and gave up when he pointedly turned away from her in the office where the police were questioning them. Justine and Anna were already in there, Anna seated with her laptop up and running and Justine leaning over her shoulder.
    This was just not her day, she thought. She walked over to her team and immediately felt a sense of peace steal over