The scent of her perfume hit him first, a sharp, intoxicating blend of night-blooming jasmine and something darker, like spiced amber. It cut through the stale beer and sweat of the crowded downtown club, an olfactory anchor in the swirling chaos. Leo Thorne, leaning against the polished mahogany of the bar with a drink he had no intention of finishing, went utterly still.
He'd come here to disappear, to be just another face in the anonymous throng. After the article—the one that had splashed his family's financial ruin and his own "playboy" escapades across the society pages—the weight of his own name felt like a lead cloak. He wanted noise to drown out the whispers, darkness to hide from the pitying stares. He hadn't expected to find a focal point.
And then he saw her.
She was a streak of crimson against a monochrome world, a vintage cocktail dress the color of a just-opened wound, hugging curves that promised both sin and salvation. She wasn't dancing with the frantic energy of the others, but moving with a slow, deliberate grace at the edge of the dance floor, a half-smile playing on her lips as if she were privy to a joke no one else understood. Her dark hair was swept up, exposing the elegant line of her neck, and in the strobe lights, for a fleeting second, Leo saw a thin, pale scar tracing her collarbone—a flaw in the porcelain that made her suddenly, devastatingly real.
"Who is that?" The question was out before he could stop it, directed at the bartender, a man who saw everything and said nothing.
The bartender followed his gaze, polished a glass with a slow hand. "New. Comes in alone, leaves alone. Pays cash. Calls herself Eva."
*Eva.* A name as short and enigmatic as her presence. Leo watched as a man in an expensive, ill-fitting suit approached her, his smile all entitlement. Leo saw her lean in, saw the man's grin widen, and then saw it freeze and shatter as she whispered something in his ear. The man backed away as if scalded, melting into the crowd. Eva's half-smile never wavered.
Intrigue, a sensation he hadn't felt in months, stirred in his chest, cutting through the numbness. He abandoned his drink and began to move, not with his usual calculated charm, but with a directness that felt foreign. The crowd seemed to part for him, or perhaps for the intensity of his focus.
He reached her just as the song shifted to something slower, a pulsing, synth-heavy track. "I have to know," he said, his voice barely audible over the music but somehow clear in the space between them. "What did you say to him?"
She turned. Her eyes were not the warm brown or blue he might have imagined, but a startling, cool grey, like sea-ice. They assessed him, not with flattery or recognition, but with a piercing intelligence that left him feeling transparent.
"I told him his watch was a fake," she said, her voice a low contralto that vibrated in his bones. "And that his wife had just walked in the door. Only one of those things was true."
A laugh, genuine and unexpected, burst from Leo. "Which one?"
"His watch was atrociously real. He just had the personality of a counterfeit." Her gaze drifted over Leo's own simple, platinum Patek Philippe. "Yours, at least, has the dignity of authenticity. Leo Thorne."
He stiffened. "You know me."
"I know the man in the papers. The one who lost his father's company and was photographed on a yacht two days later." There was no judgment in her tone, only a statement of fact, which somehow made it worse.
"The yacht belonged to a friend. The photos were taken a month before the story broke," he said, the defense automatic, weary. "But you've already made up your mind, haven't you?"
"I never make up my mind until I've seen the ledger for myself," she replied, turning back to watch the crowd. The statement was odd, financial, out of place.
"Are you an accountant, Eva?"
"Something like that. I balance books. I find things that are missing." She finally looked back at him, and her eyes held a challenge. "What are you missing, Leo Thorne?"
The question was a punch to the gut. *Everything.* His father, dead from the stress of the collapse. The company, stripped for parts by vulture investors. His own identity, which had been so neatly tied to wealth and privilege that without it, he felt untethered, a ghost. He couldn't say any of that.
"A reason to stay in this club," he said instead, offering a ghost of his old, charming smile.
She didn't return it. "Then you should leave."
"I'd rather you left with me."
"And why would I do that?"
"Because you're not here for the music either," he said, leaning closer, catching another wave of her jasmine-and-amber scent. "You're watching. Just like I was. The question is, who are you watching for?"
For the first time, a flicker of something—alarm? respect?—crossed her composed features. It was gone in an instant. "You're more observant than the gossip columns suggest."
"The gossip columns never had to survive in the wild," he said quietly, the bitterness seeping through.
She studied him for a long moment, the ice in her eyes thawing a fraction. "There's a diner on 7th. The food is terrible, but the coffee is hot and they don't play music. Meet me there in twenty minutes. Lose anyone who might be following you."
Before he could process the instruction, she had slipped away, a red phantom dissolving into the shadows near the emergency exit. Following her was instinctual. He pushed through the back door into a grimy alley, the cold night air a shock. She was already at the far end, hailing a cab. She didn't look back.
Leo spent the twenty minutes in a state of heightened awareness, taking a circuitous route, watching reflections in shop windows. He saw no one. It was both reassuring and deeply unnerving. *Lose anyone who might be following you.* Who would be following him? The press? The new owners of Thorne Industries, worried he'd cause trouble? Or was it *her* they might be following?
The diner was a relic, all chipped chrome and vinyl. She sat in a back booth, two mugs of black coffee steaming between them. She had removed her shawl. The red dress seemed even more vivid under the harsh fluorescent lights, the scar on her collarbone a stark, white line.
He slid in opposite her. "No one followed me. I'm not sure anyone would bother."
"Don't be naïve," she said, stirring a single sugar into her coffee. "Your family's