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be better. She wanted to be in a well-lit restaurant with Davis Sloan, the man she’d thought she was seeing— Stop it, Mia. Just get over it. While Jack’s methods sucked, and her mother was going to be blackballed for quite a while, the reason Mia was here was valid.
    She was the best.
    She’d do this one last job with her old partner and then she’d be done.
    There was no need to talk. They’d worked together enough times to know the drill. As much as she didn’t want to be here, her natural instincts had come back into sharp focus—almost as if she’d never left the agency. As if she and Ryan were still the best team in undercover work.
    The house was overflowing with guests. The doors, conveniently left open wide to dispel the body heat, also made it much easier to do a little second-story work. The converted mansions that comprised Embassy Row dated to the turn of the twentieth century. They were similarly laid out and Mia knew the floor plans as well as she knew her way around the local Hecht’s Department store. Tuxedo-clad undercover agents guarded the entrances and exits to the building, mandatory in the terrorist climate of the times. But she knew that the security force was there to keep people out, not monitor people within.
    Mia slid her plate onto a half-round table against the wall.
    â€œReady?”
    He gave her a heavy-lidded look. “Always.”

CHAPTER THREE
    B EING SO WELL CONNECTED proved to be a curse and a blessing. It was easy to maneuver the maze of guests with the comfortable ease of familiarity. However, they couldn’t move two feet without being stopped. Everyone wanted to chat.
    Jack wasn’t the only one to have missed Mia in the past eight months. She was well liked. And God only knew Jack loved to watch her interact with people. Even though her face was the first thing he imagined in the morning, and the last thing he imagined every night, the reality of Mia Rossi couldn’t be replicated—even in his fertile imagination.
    She was the only woman there not wearing a fortune in gems. A serviceable gold-plated watch, and a pair of quarter carat diamond studs she’d bought with her first dividend check, were all she wore with the understated black dress. And she still looked more beautiful, more elegant, than any woman in the room.
    Jack had bought Mia a fortune in jewelry during their time together. He’d tried it all. Diamonds, emeralds, gold and silver. Made no difference. She’d returned everything with a smile and a no thank you. She’d refused to accept expensive presents from him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t give her what she wanted most.
    The sound of her musical laughter, the sparkle of amusement in her big brown eyes, the habit she had of absently tucking a short strand of dark hair behind her ear as she listened, head half-cocked, to a long story by the terminally boring senator from Arkansas. Everything about her was achingly familiar, comfortable. And so tempting. He had never felt this kind of completeness with anyone. Even though it felt right, somehow things had gone terribly, terribly wrong for them. Jack mentally cursed. This was not the path his brain should be on. It was too dangerous on too many levels.
    Mia Rossi was a complete pain in his ass. Opinionated. Stubborn. Unyielding. And worst of all, unforgiving.
    She wanted nothing to do with him. Yet he wanted to do everything with her. To her.
    Hell.
    Beautiful. Courageous. Sexy as hell. He fanned his fingers out on the small of her back and felt a visceral jolt as her skin warmed under his touch and she unconsciously shifted under his hand. She’d always been responsive to the smallest of his touches.
    Just as he was responding to the knowledge that under that sleek little dress she wore that amazing thong. The thong he still had dreams about. The thong she’d wear whenever she wanted to drive him crazy.
    Man. He had it bad.
    It took