A sharp, full-throated sound that bounced off the foyer walls and would absolutely carry through the transom and into the street where Jackson’s headlights had just swept across the front windows.
Damen let go instantly.
Carissa smoothed the sleeve of her dress, looked him directly in the eye, and said quietly, “Interesting. So you do know how fast to release a woman when you think someone might hear.”
Then she opened the door and walked outside.
Jackson took one look at her face and one look at Damen in the hallway behind her and asked, “Everything okay?”
Carissa smiled without humor. “It will be.”
Dinner itself was almost shockingly normal.
That was what made it dangerous.
Jackson asked about her cases and actually listened to the answers instead of waiting for a place to redirect the conversation back to himself. He remembered she took her bourbon neat and that she hated being asked if she was “one of those women who likes whiskey to seem cool.” He did not flatter her intelligence like it was a surprising quirk. He assumed it as fact and built conversation from there.
At one point, halfway through the main course, Carissa laughed so suddenly and genuinely she startled herself.