Raphael was a dead man.
The thought crossed Kade's mind no less than four times since he'd walked through those gilded doors.
That dipshit owed him an apology.
No, scratch that.
Raphael owed him a full written confession, a bottle of aged whiskey, and possibly his resignation letter.
Kade had not spent the better part of his evening squeezing himself into a tuxedo to stand in a room full of people he had zero interest in, breathing recycled perfume and listening to an orchestra play something that was supposed to feel sophisticated but mostly made him want to check his watch every three minutes.
He checked his watch again.
Ten forty-seven.
He had been here for exactly one hour and twenty-three minutes, and the only thing he had confirmed was that his PI had terrible judgment.
"He will be there," Raphael had said, with that infuriating confidence of his. "Trust me on this one, boss."
Kade trusted very few things in this world. Raphael's instincts were somewhere near the bottom of that list tonight.
He stifled a yawn, eyes drifting to a bald security guard stationed near the east exit. He had already identified four exits, two blind spots, one man almost certainly carrying a concealed weapon beneath his jacket, and zero sign of his target.
Zero.
He stood near the far wall, drink in hand, untouched. The ballroom was everything he expected and nothing he wanted. Crystal and marble. Money performing for other money. The orchestra played something meant to feel timeless but mostly served as background noise for people who had run out of interesting things to say, which, from where he was standing, appeared to be everyone.
The staring had started the moment he walked in. It always did. He had stopped being bothered by it somewhere around his mid-twenties, when he realized most people looked at him the way they looked at expensive things in shop windows. Wanting, but not quite knowing why.
The women were the more obvious offenders tonight. Glances stretched past the point of casual. Smiles aimed in his direction like they expected him to catch them. One had shifted her position twice just to stay in his eyeline.
He hadn't looked back. Not once.
The men were quieter about it, but louder in a different way. He could feel the weight of it. That particular kind of male attention dressed up as indifference, really just envy trying to hold its posture. He recognized it. He had grown up surrounded by it. It had stopped meaning anything to him a long time ago.
His target was not here yet. Or had already left.
Either way, the evening was shaping up to be a spectacular waste of his time.
"None of you are why I'm here," he muttered under his breath.
He was reaching for a fresh flute from a passing tray when she appeared.
"You look lonely," she said, stepping into his space with the ease of someone who had never been told no and had built her entire personality around that fact.
Blonde. Striking with very little underneath. Her dress was red. Her smile was the kind that expected results.
"I'm not," Kade said.
She laughed, soft and rehearsed. "You've been standing here alone for twenty minutes. That qualifies."
"I prefer my own company."
She tilted her head, undeterred. "Most men say that until better company arrives."
Kade looked at her then. Just long enough to be polite, not long enough to encourage anything. "I am not most men. Enjoy your evening," he said, and walked away before she could find her next line.
He lifted a fresh flute from a passing tray and moved through the room at an unhurried pace. To anyone watching, he was simply a guest on a leisurely tour of the hall. He kept his shoulders loose, his expression mild, his eyes doing the actual work.
He worked the perimeter in a slow arc, pausing occasionally to appear absorbed in nothing in particular. The crowd thinned near the edges. The lighting softened. He found a corner that gave him a clean sight line across the full length of the room and settled into it.
He stifled another yawn. "Come on. Give me something."
And then something gave.
She was standing near the opposite wall, and the first thing he noticed was that she wasn't performing. Everyone else in this room was performing something. This one was just standing there with a champagne flute she clearly had no intention of drinking, her expression set somewhere between boredom and controlled irritation. It was the most honest face in the entire room.
Kade went still.
She was beautiful in a way that felt almost inconvenient. The kind of face that didn't ask for your attention but took it anyway, and looked like she'd find that deeply irritating if you mentioned it.
He watched her scan the room. Watched her interact briefly with a man in a tuxedo, then a woman in diamond-studded silk, and come away from both exchanges looking exactly the same as before.
Unmoved.
Interesting.
Their eyes met.
She didn't smile. Didn't look away. Didn't do any of the things people usually did when they got caught staring. She just looked back at him, level and unbothered.
He lifted his glass.
She turned her back to him.
"Feisty, huh?"
Kade chuckled low and pushed off the wall, crossing the room toward his new target.
---
She smelled like something warm underneath the cool exterior. Something that contradicted the careful distance she wore like armor.
The conversation came easily, which surprised him. There was something about the way she spoke, flat and unhurried and completely unimpressed by him, that made him want to keep talking just to see what she would say next.
He asked her to dance mostly to see if she would say no.
She didn't.
On the floor, she moved like a swan. Graceful and untouchable. But there was a moment, brief and barely visible, where her body leaned into his before her mind caught up and corrected it.
He noticed and leaned in to tease her.
"Enjoying the view?"
She stroked his shoulder, her fingers grazing the expensive fabric of his jacket. "I am. The view is very nice."
He chuckled low and brushed her hair away from her neck, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. Her scent was like a heady drug, dragging him under by the second.
He twirled her once, then brought her back against his chest, her back to him. "You smell divine."
"I know I do," she purred.
Her proximity sent a surge of electricity through him. Kade's grip on her waist tightened for a beat. Why was she having this effect on him?
He caught sight of the woman in red watching from the top of the stairs, anger directed squarely at the woman in his arms.
He didn't care.
His attention returned to the dark-haired woman pressed against his chest, and he decided she was considerably more interesting than whatever that was about.
His lips found the shell of her ear. "Shall we take this somewhere quieter?"
She didn't pull away. That told him enough.
---
The balcony air was cool and sharp, a welcome contrast to the suffocating warmth of the hall. She leaned against the railing, and he gave her the distance for a moment before closing it.
He hadn't planned to kiss her.
That was the honest truth of it, and Kade had very little patience for lying to himself. He had come tonight with a purpose. A specific, focused purpose. But she had looked up at him, and something in him moved.
The kiss landed differently than he expected.
He had braced for control. Instead, for a few unguarded seconds, she kissed him back, and the raw honesty of it hit him somewhere unexpected.
Then she pulled back.
He let her.
Watched her wipe his mouth with her thumb, slow and deliberate. Then she turned and walked away, clean and unhesitating, without a single glance over her shoulder.
Kade stood at the railing.
"What was that?" he muttered.
He turned it over.
She wasn't a socialite. She wasn't someone's bored, beautiful wife looking for a distraction. Whatever she was, it was appealing to him madly.
He wanted to know what it was.
That was new.
Raphael was going to hear about this.
But first, he needed a name.
"Just Camille," she had said.
"Camille, huh?" He turned that over slowly.
His jaw shifted. He pushed off the railing and straightened his jacket.
He was going to find out the rest.