Alena waited by the curb for ten minutes, the wine from dinner and the adrenaline from her encounter with Graves making her head spin. She gripped a cold metal railing to steady herself, her face pale under the streetlights.
A gentle voice sounded beside her. "Alena? Are you okay? You look terrible."
She turned to see her boss, Claire Hayes, the firm's sales director. Claire was a chic woman in her forties with a perpetually kind expression.
Seeing a friendly face, Alena's tense shoulders relaxed slightly. "Claire. I'm fine, just had a bit too much to drink."
"Let me give you a ride home," Claire insisted, taking her arm. "It's not safe for you to be alone like this."
Alena was about to politely decline when a sleek black Audi A8 pulled up silently in front of them. The license plate was distinctive-a government plate.
The driver's door opened, and a man in a dark, impeccably tailored suit and rimless glasses got out. He was tall, with a quiet, scholarly air that radiated calm authority.
He walked quickly to Alena's side, smoothly taking over from Claire and pulling Alena into a supportive embrace. His voice was gentle, but held a note of chiding. "Why did you drink so much?"
Alena sagged against his solid chest, inhaling the clean, soap-like scent of his shirt. A sense of safety, however fleeting, settled over her. "Cole. You're here."
Claire looked at the man, her initial surprise melting into a knowing smile. "Ah, so this is 'him'," she teased Alena. "Now I'm not worried."
The comment made Alena's cheeks flush.
Cole nodded politely to Claire. "Thank you for looking after her, Ms. Hayes."
Not far down the street, parked in the shadows, Graves watched the entire scene unfold from the backseat of his black Bentley.
His assistant, Leo, sat in the passenger seat, having just delivered his initial findings. "Sir, we've got a preliminary ID. The man on the phone with Ms. Griffith... it's most likely the current mayor of New York City, Cole Wiley."
Graves's gaze was fixed, a laser beam cutting through the tinted glass, aimed at the man holding Alena. The mayor? She had married the goddamn mayor of New York?
A furious, bitter jealousy burned in his chest. No wonder she was so confident. She had found herself a powerful protector.
He watched as Cole opened the passenger door for Alena, his hand hovering protectively over her head to keep her from bumping it on the frame.
Alena slid into the car without protest. Before closing the door, Cole leaned in and said something that made a small smile grace his lips.
To Graves, the simple, domestic gesture was an intimate, blindingly painful sight. It was confirmation.
The Audi pulled away smoothly, disappearing into the flow of traffic.
Claire waved goodbye and got into her own car.
Graves finally tore his eyes away. The pressure inside the Bentley was suffocating.
"Keep digging," he bit out, the words forced through clenched teeth. "I want to know when they got married. Every detail. I don't want anything missed."
He couldn't accept it. The woman who had once looked at him with such unguarded love and dependence was now nestled in another man's care.
In the front seat, Leo didn't dare breathe, his fingers flying across his tablet to issue the new commands.
Graves leaned back against the leather seat and closed his eyes. The image of Alena and Cole played over and over in his mind, a hand squeezing his heart until it ached.
He had assumed she would be miserable without him, waiting for him to find her. He had never, in his wildest nightmares, imagined she would simply erase him from her life.
Meanwhile, in the Audi, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Alena leaned her head against the cool glass of the window, rubbing her temples. "Thanks, Cole. I'm sorry for dragging you into this."
Cole drove with steady hands, his eyes on the road. "You saw him, didn't you?" he asked quietly.
