Chapter 4: A Crack in the Armor

Chapter 4: A Crack in the Armor

The success at the gala earned them exactly what Evie had predicted: a new level of access. Julian Croft, apparently charmed by the image of the brilliant and devoted Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood, had invited ‘Alexander’ to his corporate headquarters for a preliminary meeting. It was the opening she had been waiting for.

“Here,” Evie said, sliding a tablet across the cold marble island in their penthouse kitchen. “This is Croft’s office wing. It’s a fortress. Biometric locks, pressure plates, thermal sensors. But every fortress has a flaw.”

Damien, nursing a cup of black coffee, didn’t look up from the tablet. He’d been quieter since the gala, the taunts replaced by a brooding, watchful silence. The memory of their dance hung between them—the feel of his hand on her bare skin, the confusing whisper of his backhanded praise. They were both acutely aware of the shift between them, and both determinedly ignoring it.

“According to the building schematics and the corporate network traffic I’ve analyzed,” Evie continued, falling back into the familiar comfort of data, “there is a seventy-three-second window. Every afternoon at 2:15 PM, Croft takes a call with his London office. He leaves his personal study and uses the secure conference room down the hall. At the same time, the guard on his floor, Henderson, takes his designated restroom break. It’s the only time the corridor to the office is unmonitored by human eyes.”

Damien finally looked up, his grey eyes narrowed. “Seventy-three seconds isn’t enough time to bypass a lock and plant a clean bug.”

“It is if I create a digital dead zone,” she countered, pushing her glasses up her nose. “I can flood the local network with junk data packets from a burner phone, just enough to disrupt the sensor logs for two minutes without triggering a system-wide alarm. That’s your window. I’ll run interference with Croft’s executive assistant at the security desk. Your job is to be a ghost.”

He studied her for a long moment, the silence stretching. She expected an argument, a dismissal of her ‘textbook’ plan. Instead, he just gave a slow, single nod. “Fine. Let’s go bug the devil’s office.” It was the closest he’d ever come to acknowledging her competence without a sardonic chaser.

Croft Tower was a monument to power, a shard of black glass that pierced the sky. Inside, the lobby was a cathedral of steel and stone, silent and intimidating. Evie felt a familiar knot of anxiety tighten in her stomach, but she forced it down, channeling the cool confidence of Isabelle Blackwood. Her hand rested on Damien’s arm, a perfect picture of a supportive wife, though she could feel the rigid tension in his bicep.

The plan unfolded with unnerving precision. While Damien, as Alexander, was in his preliminary meet-and-greet with one of Croft’s lieutenants, Evie excused herself. She made her way to the executive floor, her heels clicking softly on the polished floor. Just as planned, Croft’s assistant, a severe-looking woman named Ms. Albright, sat behind a large desk with a bank of security monitors.

Evie put on her most charming smile. “Ms. Albright? I’m Isabelle Blackwood. My husband is in with Mr. Vance. Forgive me for being a bother, but is that a real Rothko in the lobby?”

As she launched into her well-rehearsed art-history cover, flawlessly dissecting the painter’s use of color and emotional resonance, she discreetly activated the program on the burner phone in her clutch. In her mind, a clock began to tick. One minute, fifty seconds left.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flicker of movement. Damien. He moved with a liquid silence that was startling, a shadow detaching itself from other shadows. He slipped down the private corridor toward Croft’s office, vanishing from sight.

Evie kept talking, holding the assistant’s gaze, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She felt as if she were holding her breath, trying to keep a bubble of normalcy from bursting. One minute left.

The seconds stretched into an eternity. He should be out by now. What’s wrong? What’s taking so long?

Then she saw it. In the polished reflection of a framed architectural award on the wall behind Ms. Albright’s desk, she saw the hallway Damien had disappeared into. And she saw something else: a security guard, not Henderson, turning the corner at the far end, walking back towards Croft’s office. He was early. Or he was an unscheduled replacement. An unforeseen variable. A fatal one.

Panic, ice-cold and absolute, flooded her veins.

The guard was ten seconds from the corner. Ten seconds from seeing Damien, who would be trapped with nowhere to go. There was no time for a signal, no time to create a bigger diversion at the desk. Yelling would bring every guard on the floor.

In that split second, every analytical thought, every carefully laid plan, evaporated. Primal instinct took over. The mission, their lives, everything rested on this moment.

She cut herself off mid-sentence. “You know, I am terribly sorry,” she said to the bewildered Ms. Albright, “I just saw my husband. I think he’s lost.”

Before the assistant could respond, Evie turned and strode toward the corridor, her steps quick and purposeful. She saw Damien pressed into a shallow alcove beside the office door, his body rigid, his expression grim. He’d seen the guard. He knew he was trapped. His eyes widened slightly as she marched toward him, a silent question in their stormy depths.

She didn't hesitate. She didn’t think. She acted.

She reached him, grabbed the lapels of his expensive suit jacket, and hauled him forward, away from the wall. And then she crushed her mouth to his.

It was a collision, not a kiss. A desperate, frantic act of survival. Her mind was screaming a single, frantic order: Sell it. Make him believe it. For a terrifying half-second, Damien was utterly still, his body rigid with shock beneath her hands. Then, as the guard’s footsteps grew louder, understanding dawned.

And he responded.

His reaction was instantaneous and overwhelming. One of his arms snaked around her waist, yanking her flush against the hard wall of his body, stealing the air from her lungs. The other hand plunged into her hair, cupping the back of her head, tilting it to deepen the angle. The kiss transformed. What began as Evie’s desperate gambit became his absolute possession. His lips were firm, demanding, moving against hers with a raw hunger that had nothing to do with a performance and everything to do with the tension that had been simmering between them for days.

The staged act of passion became terrifyingly real. Adrenaline and something far more potent surged through Evie. She forgot the guard, the mission, the bug. She forgot everything but the shocking, undeniable reality of Damien’s mouth on hers, the possessive grip of his hands, the solid heat of his chest against her own. Her fingers uncurled from his jacket and clung to his shoulders.

Through the blood pounding in her ears, she heard the guard’s footsteps slow. A low chuckle. “Whoa, sorry folks. Didn’t see anything.” The footsteps retreated, moving away down the hall.

The danger was gone. The audience had departed.

But they didn’t break apart.

For a long, charged moment that stretched into an eternity, they stayed locked together in the silent corridor. It was Damien who finally eased back, just enough for them to breathe. His hand was still tangled in her hair, his other arm a band of steel around her waist. They were both breathing heavily, their faces inches apart.

She stared into his eyes. The arrogance was gone. The mockery was gone. The animosity that had defined their every interaction had been vaporized in the searing heat of the last thirty seconds. In its place was a thick, raw, unspoken storm of shock and dawning awareness.

The line hadn't just been blurred. It had been annihilated. He looked at her not as a liability or an asset, but as the woman he had just kissed with an intensity that had shaken them both to the core.

The bug was planted. The mission was a success. But as they stood in the silent, empty hallway, Evie knew they had just triggered a bomb of their own, and the fallout was going to be infinitely more dangerous.