Chapter 1 - Ten Seconds
Connor Hayes grabbed Harper's wrist and hissed, "Don't embarrass yourself."
Roman Falco stepped between them and picked up the champagne glass Connor had knocked from her hand.
Three letters were scratched beneath its silver base.
D.C.M.
Roman stopped smiling.
Connor had just made a much bigger mistake.
Harper Bennett had spent twelve years learning how not to react when a man wanted a reaction from her.
Law school had taught her the technical version. Courtrooms had taught her the practical one.
Connor Hayes had taught her the painful one.
So when three hundred people inside the Halston Hotel ballroom watched her former fiancé arrive with Paige Lang on his arm, Harper did what she had trained herself to do.
She stood still.
The ballroom glittered around them beneath crystal chandeliers. White roses climbed from tall centerpieces. Waiters moved between tables carrying champagne. The charity board's largest donors stood beneath marble columns, pretending they had suddenly developed an intense interest in their drinks.
Nobody was interested in their drinks.
They were interested in Harper.
More specifically, they were interested in whether Harper Bennett was about to fall apart.
Connor had apparently come for the same reason.
"Harper," he said.
"Connor."
Paige leaned against him.
"It's so brave of you to come tonight."
Harper almost admired the preparation behind the insult.
Almost.
"This is a charity gala," Harper replied. "Not a battlefield. Attendance requires an invitation, not courage."
Sarah Whitman, Harper's closest friend, made a small choking sound beside her that might have been laughter.
Paige's expression tightened.
Connor sighed.
"We came over to be civil."
"You brought your mistress to a ballroom where half the guests received invitations to our wedding."
"Former mistress," Paige corrected.
Connor gave Harper the same patient expression he used when explaining something obvious to a junior employee.
"Things end. Adults move forward."
Harper's fingers tightened around her glass.
Then Paige smiled.
"Connor told me how anxious you get at events like this. He said you used to need him to hold your hand."
That hurt.
Not because it was clever.
Because it was private.
Harper had once trusted Connor with the ugliest corners of herself. She had told him about the panic attack she'd suffered at a crowded fundraiser two years earlier. He had held her in bed afterward and promised he would never make her feel ashamed of it.
Now he had given the memory to another woman as entertainment.
Harper looked at him.
"You should walk away."
Connor shook his head.
"See? This is what I mean. You escalate everything."
"I'm standing still."
"No," a deep voice said behind her. "You're simply boring her."
Silence spread through the people nearest them.
Harper turned.
Roman Falco stood there.
She recognized him immediately.
Everyone did.
Falco Holdings owned freight terminals, warehouses, construction companies, and enough riverfront property to make half the developers in Chicago nervous. Newspapers called Roman a logistics magnate. Federal investigators had occasionally used darker language.
No criminal case against him had ever reached trial.
Harper had encountered him twice in courthouse corridors.
They had never spoken.
Up close, he was more unsettling than she remembered.
Not because he looked angry.
Because he didn't.
Roman wore a black suit and black shirt, no tie. Dark hair swept back from his forehead. Short stubble shadowed his jaw, interrupted by a faint scar.
He glanced at Connor.
Then Paige.
Then Harper.
"I apologize for being late," Roman said.
Harper stared at him.
Connor did too.
Roman stepped beside her and rested his hand lightly at the small of her back.
Harper stiffened.
His fingers immediately loosened.
That surprised her more than the touch itself.
"You two came together?" Connor demanded.
Roman ignored him.
He looked at Harper.
"Do you trust me for ten seconds?"
Harper should have said no.
She didn't know this man.
She knew his reputation. She knew rumors. She knew that attorneys lowered their voices when his companies appeared on litigation calendars.
But she also knew something else.
Roman had felt her tense.
And he had immediately given her space.
Connor had known her for four years and rarely noticed when she wanted him to stop touching her.
Harper met Roman's eyes.
Then nodded.
Once.
Roman leaned closer slowly.
He gave her time.
Time to understand.
Time to refuse.
Time to leave.
She didn't.
His hand rose to the side of her neck.
Then Roman Falco kissed her.
The ballroom disappeared.
It wasn't a theatrical kiss.
That would somehow have been easier.
It was restrained. Warm. Deliberate.
Harper's palm landed against his chest.
She felt his heartbeat beneath the fabric.
Steady.
Unlike hers.
Roman broke the kiss first.
For half a second, neither moved.
Then Harper heard someone drop a glass.
Connor's face had changed.
Paige looked as though she'd forgotten how to close her mouth.
Roman lowered his hand.
"Nine seconds," he murmured.
Despite herself, Harper almost laughed.
Connor stepped forward.
"What the hell is this?"
Roman finally looked at him.
"An interruption."
"Harper."
Connor reached for her wrist.
His fingers closed around it.
That was his second mistake.
Roman's expression didn't change.
But something in the room did.
"Take your hand off her."
Connor released Harper.
He tried to laugh.
"This doesn't concern you."
Roman bent, retrieved the champagne glass Connor's movement had knocked to the marble floor, and inspected it before handing it toward a waiter.
Then he paused.
Three tiny letters had been scratched beneath the decorative silver base.
D.C.M.
Roman's eyes narrowed.
Harper noticed.
"What?"
"Nothing."
That answer was too quick.
Roman gave the glass to a man standing behind him.
Not a waiter.
The man quietly disappeared into the crowd.
Connor was watching.
So was Harper.
"What did you see?" she asked.
Roman looked at her for several seconds.
"Something that shouldn't be here."
Connor scoffed.
"You're being dramatic."
Roman's gaze returned to him.
"Am I?"
Connor's confidence flickered.
Paige pulled his arm.
"Let's go."
Connor didn't move.
Roman stepped closer.
"You came here tonight because you wanted an audience."
Connor smiled thinly.
"You don't know anything about me."
"I know enough."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
Roman's eyes became cold.
"It means enjoy the audience while you still have one."
Connor's face drained slightly.
Harper caught it.
So did Roman.
Interesting.
Before Connor could answer, the ballroom microphone chimed.
The charity chairman called guests toward dinner.
Conversation exploded instantly.
Roman offered Harper his arm.
She stared at it.
"Are we pretending we're dating now?"
"No."
"Good."
"We're pretending I have manners."
That nearly made her smile.
Sarah appeared at Harper's other side.
"I leave you alone for forty-five seconds and you kiss Roman Falco?"
"He kissed me."
Sarah stared.
"That distinction is not helping."
Roman's mouth twitched.
Harper turned toward him.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you help me?"
Roman's amusement disappeared.
"Because Hayes wanted to humiliate you."
"That happens every day in this city. You don't kiss everyone."
"No."
"Then why me?"
Roman studied her.
For the first time, Harper saw something beneath his composure.
Recognition.
Not romantic recognition.
Something more troubling.
"You represented Calder Maritime eighteen months ago."
Harper froze.
Calder Maritime.
A shipping dispute.
One of the strangest cases of her career.
Her client had settled abruptly after Harper discovered irregular transfers hidden inside warehouse invoices. Her supervising partner, Daniel Croft, had ordered her to stop investigating.
"What does Calder have to do with Connor?"
Roman glanced toward the ballroom doors.
Connor and Paige were leaving.
"More than you know."
Harper's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She opened the message.
There was no text.
Only a photograph.
Harper standing beside Roman thirty seconds earlier.
The picture had been taken from somewhere above them.
She enlarged it.
A red circle had been drawn around Roman's hand at her back.
Underneath appeared a second message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT WHEN CONNOR GAVE YOU THE CHANCE.
Harper's blood went cold.
Roman read it over her shoulder.
His entire expression changed.
"Who sent that?" Harper whispered.
Roman looked toward the mezzanine.
A figure disappeared behind the balcony curtain.
Roman started moving.
Harper followed.
They reached the staircase just as a hotel employee hurried down.
Roman caught the man's shoulder.
"Who was upstairs?"
The employee looked terrified.
"I don't know."
Roman released him.
Harper's phone vibrated again.
This time there was a video.
She pressed play.
The footage showed her apartment.
Her bedroom.
Recorded that morning.
Harper stopped breathing.
The camera moved toward her nightstand.
A man's gloved hand opened the drawer where she kept documents from the Calder Maritime case.
Then the video ended.
Roman looked at Harper.
"Those files."
"What about them?"
"Are they still there?"
"I don't know."
Roman pulled out his phone.
"Don't go home."
Harper stared at him.
"You know what this is."
Roman didn't answer.
"Roman."
His jaw tightened.
"Calder Maritime wasn't the case you thought it was."
"What was it?"
Before he could answer, a voice sounded from the top of the staircase.
"Mr. Falco."
Roman looked up.
A hotel security guard stood there holding a sealed envelope.
"This was left for Ms. Bennett."
Harper took it.
Her name was handwritten across the front.
She tore it open.
Inside was a photograph of Connor.
He was standing beside Daniel Croft.
Harper's managing partner.
Behind them was a warehouse marked with the same three letters scratched beneath the champagne glass.
D.C.M.
Harper turned the photograph over.
One sentence was written across the back.
ASK ROMAN WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAST LAWYER WHO FOUND THE LEDGER.
Harper slowly raised her eyes.
Roman had gone completely still.
She whispered, "What happened to them?"
Roman opened his mouth.
Then someone screamed from the ballroom.
May you like
A gunshot cracked through the chandeliers.
And the lights went out.
