Page 56 of Shadow Of Sin

I shake my head. “No evidence of that. She seems…herself.”

“And you like…herself.” Cillian waggles his eyebrows at me.

“She’s helping me out with this Dmitri intel. That’s all,” I say. But as I speak the words, a tightness in my chest strains them.

Mainly because it’s a big fucking lie.

It’s not all.

But since I don’t have a category for these feelings, I’m not ready to talk about them. Even to Cillian.

Tony left sandwiches on the counter for us. I turn away from Cillian, hoping to deflect his attention to the food. I pick one up.

“You’re having a sandwich?” Cillian says. “Are we out of Honey Nut Cheerios?”

“I’m hungry and it looks…interesting.” I examine the sandwich, the crispy crust of the bread, and take a cautious bite. Sourdough. Prosciutto. Some kind of cheese I don’t recognize that has a sharp, salty bite. My brain files the texture the same way it’s been filing new food since I started eating at Rosario’s. Like it’s waking up to something it didn’t know it was missing.

Kind of like what Eva does to my brain.

This is all Eva’s fault. Before her, I ate my Cheerios and didn’t think about it. Now I notice bread and cheese, and the way garlic smells when it hits a hot pan, and the difference between a good tomato sauce and a great one. She didn’t do this on purpose. She just exists in a world where food means something, and being near her rewired something in my brain that I didn’t know was disconnected.

I hear her voice from a nearby room. She’s explaining something to Adriana. I can’t make out the words, just the tone. It’s confident, direct, and matter of fact. Just like her.

I turn when footsteps pad along the floor behind us.

Eva stands in the kitchen doorway. Cillian looks at her, then at me, and grins. “Looks like you guys have some heavy stuff to talk about. I’m gonna take off.”

He piles sandwiches on his plate, grabs a beer from the fridge, and walks out of the room.

Eva watches him leave, then turns back to me. “They don’t need me for the next part,” she says. “Lochlan’s running security scenarios now based on what we talked about.”

“Okay.”

She walks in, leans against the counter across from me, and folds her arms. There are about four feet between us, which is both too far and too close at the same time.

We haven’t really been alone since last night in her apartment, since she opened the door and told me to get the fuck out. I don’t count the car ride this morning because she was still pissed as hell, and the only thing we talked about was my brothers.

“You’re eating a sandwich,” she says, pointing at my plate.

“Yeah.” I look down at it as if I’m just as shocked. I kind of am, if I’m being honest. The Cheerios are comfortable and they’re right in the cabinet. “Definitely not Cheerios.”

“That’s new.”

I meet her icy but curious gaze. “Lots of things are new to me lately.”

Our eyes lock. Four feet. My thumb starts tapping against the counter and I let it because stopping it takes effort I don’t have right now.

“You told Ronan to use what I’ve got,” she says. “Back in that early meeting. You shut him down.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because he was wasting time interrogating you when he should have been listening to you.”

She shakes her head. “That’s not why.”

So damn perceptive.