My jaw tightens when Grayson adds, “Not surprising considering she’s sleeping with the enemy.”
“She’s still an agent.”
“A compromised agent,” Grayson fires back, his tone unusually stern. “She’ll get no sympathy from me.”
After calling him a grumpy bastard under my breath, I give his suggestion a try. “Izzy, it’s Brandon. Are you home?”
Although no voices project through the thick wooden door, I hear the scuffling of feet, then, a few seconds later, the door is pulled open.
“Damn… my brother had good taste.”
Regan is gorgeous, but I can’t look at her in the same light Alex and Grayson do. For one, Alex may kill me, and two, Regan is too fierce looking for me. She portrays a woman who’d rather whip me than snuggle with me. Melody and I experimented sexually our first year of college, but bondage never entered the equation.
I peer at Isabelle over Regan’s shoulder when Regan removes my coat without speaking a word. Isabelle is giggling like she heard my inner monologue, but her chuckles are barely heard over Grayson’s numerous lewd comments. I’m glad his last few months undercover didn’t affect his ability to rile me, but I wish he’d pick a better time and location.
I can feel my cheeks heating, and it has nothing to do with Regan’s thorough pat-down. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear she was the agent in the hall. I feel seconds from being told to bend over and unclench my butt cheeks so she can finalize her search of all the cavities in my body.
“Admit it, you’re hard,” Grayson mutters down the line, still laughing. “I am.”
Fighting to hold back a gag, I dip my chin in thanks to Regan when she hangs my jacket in the entry closet. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad it was as good for you as it was me…” When Grayson’s words are stolen by a groan, I make a mental note to thank Phillipa for keeping him in line.
Just as Regan tells me, “It was my pleasure,” Isabelle joins us in the foyer. The past twenty-four hours have been good for her. She looks like she got some sleep, and her eyes are glistening from I don’t want to know what.
When she curls her arms around my shoulders to greet me with a hug, I whisper in her ear, “She scares me.”
“Good one, punk. Bring out the frightened-boy act. It works on anyone with a vagina.”
The annoyed expression on my face from Grayson’s grading of my act can be excused for shock when Regan mutters, “I heard that.” She saunters into a living area three times the size of mine before spinning back around to face Isabelle and me. “And you should be scared.”
She snags a stack of paperwork off the coffee table before entering a hallway on our right, her brisk strides only slowing to do one final glance of my body.
My chin automatically lifts when Grayson’s gravelly tone is switched for Phillipa’s songful one. “She’s onto you.”
Although curious to discover what gave away my ruse, I don’t have time to unravel the woman who has Alex twisted up in knots. The gala is two nights away. We’re down to the wire.
Once I’m confident my expression is neutral, I shift on my feet to face Isabelle. “I hope you don’t mind me popping in like this, Izzy, but I couldn’t call you on your cell since Hunter smashed it, and I don’t have any of Regan’s contact details.”
I realize we have more than Grayson, Phillipa, and Harvey listening in when a female voice from down the hall says, “I can give them to you. All you have to do is ask.”
Laughing to hide her unease that she’s forever being watched, Isabelle guides me toward the living room, freeing up some privacy. “Sorry, she’s a little…”
When she struggles to find the words to describe Regan’s overbearing personality, I offer up a suggestion. “Like Isaac?”
Grimacing, she nods.
“She’s got you played, punk. She’s all but admitting she is sleeping with a target because she knows you won’t do sweet-fuck-all about it, so why are you still hesitating? Let’s get this done.”
That’s easy for Grayson to say. He’s not the one standing across from the woman Tobias classed as a daughter with the hope of forcing her to become a Honey Pot against her knowledge. Although I’m skeptical she’ll ever be in danger, it still feels like I’m using her.
After scrubbing my hand down my face, I test the boundaries of our friendship, hopeful our mutually