Page 100 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

It makes no sense that a man like this should be here, trying to run a con like this.

He stands by the desk, and studies me as if he has all the time in the world and no fear at all that I might call security. It makes me want to call them immediately, but it also makes me curious.

Whyisn’the worried?

Who is he?

But I remind myself that what matters is that I know who he’snot.

“I really must insist,” I say, in the calm, sure voice I use when things go awry on a job. “You can’t be in here. I think you know that.”

That voice usually produces immediate results, but not today. He smiles, then encircles the desk, and watching him move does not help anything at all. It’s far too… Liquid, almost. There’s an ease to the way he holds himself, and while he doesn’tslouch,he very much gives the impression that he has high expectations of gravity and expects them to be met.

According to his demands, even.

And I don’t know what’s happening inside of me. Temper, maybe. That same electric kind of shock, but over and over again. And it’s as if something in me is echoing the way he moves, liquid and low.

He rounds the desk and thrusts his hands into the pockets of that suit, marring all those perfect lines and yet somehow making it all…better.

Suddenly I’m aware of his body in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever been before.

Of anyone’s. Not even my own.

I’m suddenly fascinated by things likesinew. The interplay of male muscle across a set of shoulders. In the way a man can be almost too beautiful to behold while, individually, all those particular features really ought to be too much.

On him, they make a symphony.

And that’s not getting into that long, hard expanse of his chest, his narrow waist. And the way he cuts through space like a deadly, elegant weapon.

He stops directly before me, and I suspect we both know it’s so I have to tilt my head back, and look up—and up and up—to meet his gaze.

I can see the glint of something there. But that’s all it is. The merestglintof what I think is the truth, though I’m not sure I can trust myself to know what it means.

“I,” he says, very deliberately in that low voice that brims over with authority—all of it unearned, “am Luc Garnier, the owner and chief investigator of this firm.”

I laugh at that. Actually laugh, though it makes my skin feel tight and my whole body even more…strangethan before. That electricity winds its way around inside of me and gathers weight, as if I might tip over into hysteria, or possibly even tears.

It’s the strangest feeling and somehow, I think his knowing gaze is to blame.

“You are not,” I retort.

And this impostor leans in close, until I realize that I’m holding my breath. He still comes closer and if I was a fanciful sort of woman, I might imagine that he is leaning in for a kiss—

I can even feel his breath on my face.

But he doesn’t kiss me.

Instead, his lips curve into a smile.

“Prove it,” he says.

CHAPTER TWO

Myheartisracing. I can feel him—and his words—everywhere. As if those two short syllables are sharp, poisoned spears he’s thrust deep into me. I’m afraid that if I look down, I’ll see them sticking out of me.

“Prove it?”I repeat, flabbergasted. But there’s a thread of trepidation winding through me, too. Because asking me to prove that he isnotLuc Garnier suggests that he knows I can’t, and no one can know that.No one,and certainly not some random man who turned up this morning like some kind of nightmare. Because if I’m revealed as a liar, who will trust me again? What will happen to this business I’ve built so painstakingly over the years? It’s not like I have any other skills—or supportive family members—to fall back on. “It’s not as if that would be hard. All I need to do is call theactualLuc Garnier. And then, I imagine, the police?”

The man standing before me looks entirely too pleased with himself. Those eyes of his in that dark, rich-bodied color,gleam.

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