“Work’s been keeping you busy,” Jalen said as we headed into the city. “Does that mean things are going well?”

“They are.” I twisted my fingers together as I glanced at him, then out the window. “I’ve been looking into Jenna’s siblings, trying to get more information on the three kids I know were adopted out of Cheyenne, and I’ve been doing some legwork on a case against some human traffickers who are bringing people up from South America to work in sweatshops.”

“Is that safe?” Jalen asked. He reached over and took my hand. “After what happened when you were looking for Meka–”

“I won’t be talking to anymore high school kids.” I threw him a smile. “Most of what Jenna has me doing is verification of things she’s found online. Paper trails, that sort of thing. I get the impression that her methods aren’t always…legal.”

“Yeah, based on some conversations I’ve heard, that sounds about right,” he said with a grin. “Jenna’s brilliant.”

“She is,” I agreed. “I think that’s one of the reasons why I want to make sure I don’t let her down with the personal stuff. She could find her siblings, most of them at least, and help the FBI with their cases, all without me, but she’s putting her family first, trying to keep things as legal as possible.”

We pulled up in front of The Melting Pot, and neither one of us spoke until we were seated at the best table in the place. We’d had those moments of silence before, but this was different, I could feel it. This was our first real date. We’d done the dinner and movie thing, but that had been at his house. Jenna and Rylan knew we were a couple, but that was about all.

As far as the outside world was concerned, Jalen Larsen’s bachelorhood was still intact.

This dinner of ours could change that. Fort Collins wasn’t like New York or LA where paparazzi were all over the place, but if someone at the restaurant recognized Jalen as one of the city’s celebrities and it was an otherwise slow news night, we could find pictures of ourselves in tomorrow’s paper.

Neither one of us had talked about it, but I knew it had to be in the back of his head because it sure as hell had been in mine. We might not be referring to each other with the titles of boyfriend and girlfriend, but this couldn’t be seen as anything other than a date.

After the wine had been poured and the waiter left, Jalen sighed. “Does this feel as awkward to you as it does to me?”

I laughed, and the sound helped break some of that tension down. “You sound as if we haven’t had a completely traditional relationship from moment one.”

He laughed and took a drink of his wine. “That is an excellent point.”

“We’ve had a rough few weeks,” I said. “Let’s talk about the stuff we haven’t had a chance to talk about. Like, do you come here often?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, heat flooded my face. “Shit. I can’t believe I just asked that.”

“It’s a perfectly reasonable question.” A smile played around his mouth. “And the answer is no. I don’t come here very often. I’ve brought a few business contacts here, but no…dates.”

He didn’t have to say her name for me to know that he was specifically talking about his hopefully soon-to-be-ex-wife, model Elise Marx. They hadn’t been together for a while, their prior attempt at a reconciliation destroyed when he caught her fucking a bodyguard. Now, she was holding up the divorce proceedings because she’d violated the terms of their prenuptial agreement and wanted a way around it. She was a real gem.

The waiter returned to take our orders, and I was glad for the distraction. When I’d asked if he’d come here before, I hadn’t meant it to be a question about whether or not he’d brought Elise here, but I couldn’t deny that I liked being the first one to have dinner with him here. A little nagging voice in the back of my head questioned the fact that this was usually his business restaurant, but I quickly shoved that away. No jumping to conclusions and no being petty. That was the only way this would ever work.

As the waiter walked away, I changed the subject. “Have you heard how Meka’s doing?”

I hadn’t seen the fifteen-year-old since finding her and five other girls held by men with guns. With Jalen’s help, I’d gotten the police involved, and the girls had all been rescued, but between Adare’s hospitalization and death, and my return to Indiana for a week, I hadn’t taken the time to decide if I should visit Meka or not. After all, Jalen had been the one who’d hired me, and aside from a single interview with Meka’s father, Theo, I didn’t have a connection with the family.

“I talked with Theo a few days after the fact, and he said that she was doing well. A few scrapes and bruises, but no other physical harm. From what Meka told him about the other girls, it was the same for them.”

I was sure the girls would be dealing with the repercussions of their kidnappings for a while, but it was still a relief to hear that none of them had been assaulted.

Jalen continued, “I guess what she went through really made her think about how fortunate she was to have a father like Theo and how it would devastate him if something happened to her. I’m sure they’ll have some moments butting heads in the future, but from what he said, the rebellious attitude she’s had since her mother died is gone.”

“That’s great.” I blew out a relieved breath. “I’m glad something good came out of that terrible experience.”

“You helped take down a human trafficking ring,” he said. “I’d consider that pretty good.”

My smile tightened. “It would be if another one wasn’t already taking over.”

Anger darkened his expression. “It never ends, does it?”

“Jenna says that she tries not to focus on the big picture, that she’d get too discouraged if she did. Instead, she thinks about each individual life that’s been saved, as well as the ones who were never forced into slavery because of what she does.” I toyed with the edge of my napkin. “I’m going to help her with the work she does for the FBI.”

“Can I ask you a question? About the FBI?”

I’d been waiting for this to come back up. Jalen had sat through the trial and my testimony, which meant he knew everything about me. My real name, what my father had done, why I’d gotten kicked out of the FBI. Sometimes, having all the information only led to more questions, and I’d been wondering when he was going to start asking them.

“Go ahead.”

“You had to know that you wouldn’t be able to lie to them about the things that’d happened, but you tried anyway. Why’d you do it?”

“I wanted to help people,” I said simply. “I have a degree in criminal justice from Columbia, and when Clay came to me my senior year and suggested I join, I thought I might as well try it. If I was going to get caught hiding my past, I figured why not do it with the FBI.”

“You don’t do anything by half-measures, do you?” he asked wryly.

“I don’t see the point,” I admitted. “But you’re the same way. Graduated MIT with a doctorate at twenty-one. A millionaire by twenty-three after selling a business that came out of an app you created in college. And now you have Sylph Industries.”

“You did your homework on me.”

I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea to know who I was getting into bed…” Heat flooded my cheeks. “I mean, business. Who I was getting into business with.” I squirmed in my seat. “It was a good idea for bed too.”

The corner of his mouth tipped up in a partial smile. “That reminds me. I still need your invoice for Meka’s case.”

“With everything that’s been going on, I completely forgot.” I dug my phone out of my purse. “I’ll set a reminder right now.”

“Are you going to try to manage Burkart Investigations on your own?” he asked.

“Adare had a receptionist for a while,” I said, “but she worked the cases alone. I’m thinking about doing the same. Have someone at the office to answer calls and keep the calendar, but do the actual investigations myself.”

“If I was working on something that could be used to find missing people, would you be willing to work as a consultant? Answering questions, pointing out flaws, that sort of thing.”

“You want me to help you with an app?” I was flattered but wasn’t entirely sure how much good I could be at something like that. I really hoped that he wasn’t offering because he thought he needed to.

“I’m still in the brainstorming stage,” he said. “Which is part of what I’d like your input about.”

“Maybe you should tell me what you’re trying to do first.”

He flushed and gave me that self-deprecating grin I liked so much. “Sorry. Sometimes my mouth and my brain aren’t in sync.”

I flashed back to the other night when his mouth and brain were very much in sync, and a rush of heat flooded me. It took far more effort than I liked to bring my attention back to the present.

“I want to come up with ways to track people,” he said, then hurried to clarify. “Not in a creepy way. I want something that’s a combination of a GPS, so if a kid like Meka goes missing, there’s a quick and efficient way of finding her, and a panic button. Even though Meka and her dad were having issues, when she realized what her boyfriend had done, I’m sure she would’ve used a panic button if she’d had one.”

I let the idea turn over in my mind, looking at the possibilities – both negative and positive – as well as possible complications. I wasn’t a tech person, which meant I didn’t know how feasible the logistics were, but I could see some of the legal issues that would come up. I wasn’t going to assume that’s what Jalen wanted though.

“What, exactly, is it you want me to do?”

He leaned back as the waiter returned to clear away our appetizer plates and refill our wine. “Mostly, just let me pick your brain about problems we’d have, suggestions, recommendations, anything that you can think of that we might possibly need to know and answers to any questions I might come up with.”

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“Of course.” He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I don’t want you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.” His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “And I don’t want you to feel obligated. It’s a sincere offer, but I don’t want to risk what we have going here.”

It was the perfect opening to ask him what that was, to get him to put into words this thing between us. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I told myself that it was because I didn’t want to sound like one of those women who want to know where things were going from moment one, but I knew that it was fear, plain and simple. I was terrified that he would tell me that what he felt wasn’t the same as what I felt. That he wanted to keep things casual and we could both see other people.

I didn’t want to see other people, and the thought of him with another woman made my stomach churn. In my head, I knew it’d be better to get it all out in the open, but logic wasn’t ruling here. So, I smiled and turned the subject to our meal. We’d have a nice, uncomplicated date, and I’d figure out the rest later.