Her grin kicks up a notch. “Look at you. You’re dying to know. Your eyes blazed the minute you realized what I was offering.”

I don’t try to deny it—I am interested and even with schooled features, she can see it. I hate how well I’ve taught her to read people. I hate when she uses her knowledge to read me.

It pisses me off enough that I almost send her packing.

But curiosity wins out. She hasn’t tempted me with her games in quite some time. Why now?

“Out with it, Ceeley.” I cringe inwardly at the slip of her childhood nickname. She’ll think I mean something by it that I don’t. It’s why I hate nicknames so much.

She stands and starts rummaging through her bag. “It’s a basic scenario—make the girl fall for you and then deny her, watching her fall to pieces.”

It had been our old favorite. No matter how many times we’d performed the experiment, it never failed to interest me. It was a marvelous study in the emotion called love, but somehow it never gave me any of the answers I was seeking.

I pretend the idea doesn’t pique me in the slightest. “How original. What about that did you think would interest me?”

She smiles with confidence. “The girl.”

I raise a questioning brow, but instead of answering me verbally, she retrieves a file folder from her bag and sets it on the desk in front of me. Then she waits for me to study it.

With a reluctant breath, I flip the cover open and move my eyes from Celia to the top sheet inside the file. Deep brown eyes and a warm smile meet me.

Celia’s right—it is the girl that interests me. And I know before she says anything more that I will hear her out to the end. Because if Celia has the answer to getting closer to Alayna Withers, I am in.

All the way.

There are other pictures in the file Celia gathered and I want to survey them all, want to memorize every detail of Alayna Withers’ expressions, her postures. I don’t though, because I’m very aware of Celia’s hawk-eyed stare. She’s waiting for me to read the reports included, and I want to—I want to absorb it all.

But there’s something else nagging at me to close the folder and end this now despite my overwhelming desire to act otherwise. I’m supposed to abstain from these games. That’s not what’s halting me. My hesitancy comes from a far more primal source—I don’t want to share. I’m already irritated that Celia’s learned things that I want to know. I wish I could horde the findings to myself, decide how I want to handle my fascination with Alayna on my own. Obviously it’s too late for that, but I can try to dissuade my former partner in crime from pursuing this further.

I shut the file without reading on. It’s harder than I imagine, still I manage it with as much indifference as I can muster. “Not interested.”

I slide the folder across the desk to where Celia has perched herself. My pulse quickens as my fingers let go of Alayna’s profile. I’m itching to scrutinize it with an obsessive pull that I haven’t felt in years. Jordan will find the same information, I remind myself. I can wait. Patience has always been one of my most admirable traits.

Celia takes the folder into her hands. I try not to focus on it any longer, but my eyes flit to it more than once.

She stands. “I guess I was wrong then.” Her tone says she doesn’t believe that for a minute. “I’ll have to keep this little prize for myself. You really are out of the game, aren’t you?”

Celia’s almost as good at manipulating as I am. It is both a blessing and a curse that I know her as well as I do—I can predict every move before she makes it. Unfortunately, she can also predict mine. She’s the greatest chess opponent I’ve ever had.

I try to discern her next move now, or, rather, the move she predicts I’ll make. She’s letting me off too easy, which means she’s not really letting me off at all. She wants me to ask her what she means to do with Alayna, and since that’s what she wants, it’s the one question I can’t ask. Yet it’s the one burning at me most.

On top of what I know she wants me to do, I have my own agenda: Whatever she has planned, I have to stop her. It’s not an altruistic motive—it goes back to the not wanting to share. I don’t want Celia to do anything to Alayna Withers because I want her all to myself. What I want her for has yet to be determined. I don’t have any urge to play the woman. But I yearn to connect with her in some way and whatever that way is, it’s not to include Celia.

So I have my work cut out for me in how I respond to my old friend. Terminate her plans without seeming to care what they are. I sit back in my chair and meet her eyes. “I’m out of the game, Celia. You know this. When will you accept that?”

I’m practiced in remaining aloof even when high stakes are on the line. I’ve often wondered if I could pass a polygraph test without being completely honest. I don’t intend to ever be in the position to find out, but it is a curiosity of mine.

Celia laughs. “I’ll never accept it, Hudson. I’d have to believe that people could change, and I don’t believe that. Not fundamentally. Sooner or later you’ll realize that it’s killing you. You thrive on your experiments. They gave you reason to live. What else could replace that?”

I’ve asked myself that same question since I left the game. I’ve searched for replacements in the best and worst of places—work, exercise, sex, alcohol. Nothing has yet to satisfy me in the way that I need, but I’m not ready to give up looking.

I won’t share that with Celia. “Life replaces it, Ceeley. Sooner or later you grow up. Even the people with enough money not to. Even us.”

“Huh. You sound even more like Alayna Withers than I thought.”

Here’s where I slip. I make my grand mistake and I know it before I start speaking and yet I can’t stop myself. “What do you mean?”

Celia’s eyes light up and I understand exactly why. Just like that, I’ve shown my interest. I’m exposed and there’s nothing I can do to take it back. She’s won. I try to convince myself it’s a small victory, but without being aware of exactly where my disclosure will take me, I already know that it’s not small at all.

“If you’d read the file,” she says calmly, “you’d know.”

So I’m stuck. Either I prod her to tell me or I ask for the file back. Both will expose my intrigue further.

Or I could ask her to leave. If I do, I’ll have to let it all go. Forget my own agenda. Forget the woman with the brown eyes and the hold she has on me.

That hold, though, is unyielding. I can’t let Alayna Withers go just yet. And if I usher Celia out, I will lose my chance to be privy to her plans. I’ve lost no matter what. Now I have to regain ground, take control of the situation.

I rise and head toward the elevator that goes only to my private loft, offering Celia a one-word directive as I do. “Upstairs.” I don’t look to see if she follows me. I know she will and sure enough, she slips in beside me just before the doors close.

“Just like old times,” she mutters under her breath.

I swallow my disgust. It feels directed at her, but it’s actually for me. It sickens me that I’m here again, that we’re sneaking away to discuss matters that have nothing to do with business. As we arrive at the loft, I attempt to stifle the notion that this simple action means that I’m conceding to anything. “This is an inappropriate conversation for my office. That’s all.”

My attempt was futile.

“Exactly,” she gloats. “Like all the conversations we’ve had here in the past.”

I can taste the disgust again at the back of my throat, its bitter flavor very real in my mouth. Though the loft had been everything from a fuck pad to a place to crash after a long day at work, it was always first and foremost our place—mine and Celia’s. Early in our gaming days, it had become our headquarters. We planned and schemed here. Used it as my address to keep our subjects from invading my personal space.