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She should check her phone. She had a few hours, but it wouldn’t hurt to check in with the office. The meeting wasn’t until this afternoon when she would get to meet her partner for the next two weeks. David Malone. Apparently he was the father of one of the Dallas office’s agents. She’d never met Michael Malone, but she knew him by reputation.

It had sounded like such an easy assignment. Learn a bit about the petroleum business and the Malone family. Take the nice Texas oil man to a tropical paradise, pretend to be his new assistant, and catch whoever was selling out the company to foreign interests. Easy peasy, and she could work on her tan while she did it.

Now she wanted to stay here and see her cowboy. The question was could she do her job during the day and see him at night? She was supposed to immerse herself into learning the business and the Malones, but there should be some personal time, right?

She stopped. Was she doing it again? Was she letting herself get so wrapped up in a man that she gave up everything for him?

This was exactly what had happened before. With Roger.

JT wasn’t Roger. She couldn’t put that stamp on every man for the rest of her life. Nina took a deep breath as she walked into the room with the pool table. In the light of day, the suite was even more impressive than it had been the night before.

She was pretty sure her entire flat could fit into this one. Morning light filled the room and washed over the pool table where she’d been worshipped the night before.

JT was the best lover she’d ever had. Was she mistaking good sex for emotion?

Her clothes were strung over the sofa along with the ones he’d been wearing the night before. She picked them up, folding them all.

She took a deep breath and decided to stop panicking, stop overthinking. She would go with the flow. There was nothing wrong with enjoying the morning together, and then when she got back from the job, she would give him a call and maybe they could have another night together and go from there.

She stared out over the city, her mind on the man walking somewhere below. What was he thinking? He’d said he wanted to talk. Somehow she didn’t see JT wanting to talk about how the sex had been good, but they should go their separate ways. No. He was going to suggest they see each other again.

That was how she would play it. She would agree to date him when she had time off work, and they would take it from there. She wouldn’t throw herself wholly into a relationship. Cool. She would play it cool.

Her cell trilled and she turned away from the morning light with a sigh. Maybe having a week away from JT would give her some perspective. She could spend the week reminding herself that one night did not a relationship make. Sandra would be good at helping her through this. Sandra would be ridiculously over-the-top honest with her. If she called her friends back in London, they would look at the whole situation through aromantic lens. That was because all her friends back in London were happily married and cranking out babies like they were trying to populate the world.

Did JT want kids?

What was wrong with her? She growled as she picked up the phone. Yes, work would be good. Work would remind her that the world wasn’t some romance novel. Work would remind her that if she didn’t pay attention, she would get shot again, and she didn’t need any more scars. “Good morning, Sandra.”

“Oh, you did not take my advice.” She could practically see Sandra shaking her head. “You sound even more tense than you did before, and what I have to tell you isn’t going to help.”

“In fact, I did take your advice. I shagged the most delicious man I’ve ever seen in my life, and it was fabulous. So fabulous that if I were a schoolgirl, I would have spent the morning writing my married name in a notebook and planning our wedding. If I knew his last name.”

A chuckle came over the line. “Ah, so that’s what’s crawled up your backside this morning. See, that’s your problem. You went for a thoroughbred when you should have started with something a little less sleek. You gotta build up to really good sex when you’re young. I’ll pick your guy next time.”

She sank down to the sofa. “That’s the problem. I think I want to see him again. We’re supposed to talk when he gets back.”

“You’re still there? Damn, girl. You know you’re supposed to run as fast as possible. We’re going to have to work on your one-night-stand style.”

The last thing she wanted was a one-night-stand style. She needed to find a happy medium between plowing through dicks and getting far too attached to the first dick she saw.

It had been a really lovely dick.

“I promise it won’t make me late. I’m not due in the office until one. Big Tag thinks far too much of jet lag, but this time it works in my favor. I’ve got plenty of time to review the dossier on Mr. Malone. I’ve memorized the ones on our most likely suspects.”

They included two members of the senior leadership team and an admin attached to David Malone’s son. The admin was going in her boss’s place. Apparently Jackson Malone wasn’t big on retreats.

Jackson.

The name seemed very popular here in Texas.

“Well, our op took a left turn,” Sandra said. “David Malone had emergency surgery yesterday and he can’t travel for a few weeks.”

Fuck. “Is Tag scrubbing the op?”

It would be hard to explain her presence without David Malone. She could work it from a staff angle, the way Sandra was, but there was a reason they’d been trying to do both.

“Nope. You’re going to go in with David’s son. We’re bringing JT Malone in this afternoon so we can lay the groundwork for your new cover. He’s already got an admin. She’ll be going along, but we can’t tell her the truth because she’s under suspicion.”