Well, fine. She could give as good as she got.
Even as she nearly slipped over her squeaky boots when a terrible, awful thought filled her.
What if he didn’t remember her?
Gavin caught her just as she reached out to grip the door frame to their small conference room. She straightened herself, unwilling to read too much into the fire radiating up and down her arm where he’d held her, firm yet gentle, just above the elbow.
“Thank you.”
He dropped his hand and just nodded.
God, why did she feel so clumsy? And so off her game?
She hadn’t felt this way three months ago. Sure, she’d been a bit nervous, but their time together had seemed to melt away any nerves or concerns. They’d just been Sera and Gavin, and it had been...
Well, it had been wonderful.
And now they were here, and they both had to make the best of it.
But how had she managed to forget just how good he smelled? And exactly how broad his shoulders were? And...
And she needed to get her damn head in the game because there was no way she was going to let a single bit of whatever happened to them three months ago ruin this. She was highly competent, and this task force was a shot at her future.
Mooning over Gavin was not the way to start it off right.
So she marched into the room, her head held high, her bearing damn near regal.
She could do this, she thought, a fierce sort of righteousness welling up inside of her. She would do this.
The conference room might be roughly the size of a broom closet, but she deliberately selected a spot on the far side, settling her things on the scarred table. Gavin still stood by the door, his gaze on her when she finally glanced up after carefully placing each of her personal items.
“Serafina?”
“I told you, I go by Sera.”
“Fine. Sera.”
“Is this room okay?”
“It’ll do just fine.”
She stared at him, suddenly realizing her mistake in taking the far corner. The windows might be at her back, but she suddenly felt her lack of escape. Or, more to the point, the need to move past him in order to escape.
One more sign she was flustered and off her game. Worse, that she suddenly felt like his quarry, his deep brown gaze seeming to size her up.
Where was that man she’d met on New Year’s? The one with the kind eyes and broad smile and caring touch? Had he been an illusion?
She’d lived with the reality of her momentary lapse in judgment for three months now, but she’d never felt that she’d shared herself with a jerk.
A stranger, maybe. But never a jerk.
Resolving to worry about it later, she tapped the folder she’d settled on the desk, on top of the legal pad she’d used to make notes during the initial briefing. “Let’s get down to it. We’re the local team. Between the police perspective you bring and the legal perspective I bring, we should be able to put together a solid plan of local cross-collaboration.”
“I’m sure we will.”
Heat filled that dark gaze at her reference to collaboration, but Sera ignored it and soldiered on. “We’ve all seen the challenges to both our teams with budget allocations, staffing constraints and the overall volume of what runs the streets of the city.” She realized her potential misstep and added, “Or fills the waters around it.”
“Day in and day out.”
“So where should we start?”
He finally took a seat, but never touched the folder that had been handed to them during the briefing. Instead, his attention was fully focused on her, nearly pinning her to her seat. “I think the first place we start is with the past.”
“Oh?” She dimly sensed a trap closing around her, but had no idea why. The city had a legacy of crime—that sort of underbelly was impossible to separate from a place so large—but so much work had been done over the years to make New York not only livable, but a truly thriving, positive place to live for its ever-growing population.
“The city does have a history,” she agreed. “But this task force really is about the future.”
“The task force is, sure. But I’m talking about you and me. And why you walked out on New Year’s Day without so much as a goodbye.”
Gavin took the slightest measure of satisfaction at the way Sera’s throat worked around whatever words she was trying to come up with.
What he couldn’t figure out was why the satisfaction was so short-lived. And why this desperate need to question her seemed to live inside of him like some wide-open, gaping maw. They were here—as she’d said—to focus on the future. Why tread through a past that had happened months ago and realistically should mean nothing to him?
He wasn’t generally interested in one-night stands, but he could hardly say he’d never had sex with a woman he didn’t know well. And since his life up to now had been suspiciously devoid of successful long-term relationships, he couldn’t understand the weird, swirling emotions this woman churned up in him.
And yet, she did. From the unceasing thoughts of her these past several months to the spears of jealousy at seeing her hug another man, he clearly hadn’t moved on the way he should have.
The way he needed to.
