She rested her head against his chest. Daniel enveloped her in his arms, pressing a kiss to her temple as he stared out at the watery scene beyond the double-paned windows.

He’d offered his help out of desperation to erase the sadness from her eyes. But as he thought about it, he couldn’t help but face a soul-crushing reality. He would be long gone by the time that tech conference came to Austin.

He didn’t have a hard-and-fast end date for this job, but he’d worked under Lowell Dwyer long enough to know that his boss had one. Daniel figured he had another month to uncover the individuals behind the money-laundering scheme before Dwyer either replaced him with someone else or scrapped the entire operation until they could gather more intel and try again.

He didn’t like it, but he understood those tough calls were sometimes necessary. Every operation had a cost-benefit analyst attached to it. There were a shitload of financial crimes being committed out there, and there was only so much manpower FinCEN could devote to each case. Trendsetters was a big one, but there were even bigger fish out there.

Like Vegas.

Shit. What was he going to do about Vegas? Was he willing to give that job up? A job that could make his career before he turned thirty?

It didn’t matter. By the time Samiah finished developing the prototype for her app, he would be gone. He’d banished those thoughts to far-off corners of his mind and tried not to think of them. But the reality remained.

She tipped her head back, looking up at him. “You know what’s funny about you offering to help me with the app? You shouldn’t have even known about it. I wasn’t going to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you have the skills to steal my idea and develop it for yourself.”

“Hey—”

“Not that you would,” she quickly acknowledged. “But I’m overly cautious when it comes to stuff like that. I’ve been burned before.”

He frowned. “Is this about Keighleigh?”

“Believe it or not, there was someone worse than Keighleigh.” She tipped her head to the side. “Actually, that stunt she pulled this past week has them neck and neck, but this previous incident had a much bigger impact.”

Daniel took her by the hand and backed up until he could perch on the arm of the sofa. He tugged her between his open legs and ran his hands along her sides, settling them at her waist.

“Tell me what happened.”

The tension he felt radiating from her told him that this still affected her.