But then, as though reading his thoughts, Ava proved him wrong. She moved before Luc could react, stepping forward so she was directly in front of him, her fingers lifting upward to rustle through his hair.
He let out a growl of protest, but she leaped back before he could grab her and darted across the room behind the photographer.
“It looks better mussed,” she called to Luc before gesturing at the photographer to do his thing.
That was not what he’d had in mind when he’d thought about Ava Sims’s hands on him.
Luc started to lift a hand to smooth his now tousled hair, but then the photographer was all up in his face, clicking an enormous camera as he turned it this way and that, and Luc could do little more than sit there and silently bemoan that this was what his life had become.
Up until this point, most of CBC’s interference in his life had come in the form of Ava following him around, and when it was NYPD sanctioned, having her cameraman tag along as well. He’d almost gotten used to them. Almost.
But this short bald man wasn’t Mihail, and Luc was really not enjoying the way the guy looked at him like he was a bowl of fruit in a still life.
The photographer—Bob? Ben? Bill?—paused his rapid-fire clicking so that he and Ava could have a quick pow-wow in the corner, talking in hushed tones as they reviewed the pictures they had so far.
Ava chewed on her bottom lip.
Not a good sign.
Whatever was in those pictures, she didn’t like.
Well tough shit. Luc was a cop, not a model, and he wasn’t about to preen.
“Officer, can I be blunt?” Ava asked, moving toward him.
He put a hand over his heart. “What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and have you ask that three years ago when you were chewing my balls out for that parking ticket.”
She ignored this. He liked that about her; she was damned good at not getting sucked into conversations and situations she didn’t want to be.
Ava was always in control, and the more he watched her boss her way through life, the more he wanted to find her trigger of self-control.
He wanted to unravel Ava Sims, just like he wanted to unwind that curve-hugging dress.
“Moretti, are you listening to me?”
“Not really.”
She sighed. “The pictures are fine, but quite honestly, you look pissed. Like you don’t want to be here.”
“What?” He faked a scandalized look. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for years!”
She pressed her lips together as though she wanted to smile but couldn’t bear to give him the satisfaction.
Instead, she went to her purse and came back with her phone, poking around the touch screen until she found what she wanted, and turned the screen to him.
It was a picture of the Moretti males on Luc’s graduation from the police academy.
There’d been a minor story about them in the paper that week.
Something about New York’s “police royalty” completing their reign, or some shit like that.
But he didn’t recognize the picture she showed him.
If memory served him correctly, the one that had been printed in the paper was a posed, forced-smile shot.
But this was a candid one.
Vincent appeared to be about to sock Luc in the gut, and they were all laughing, even Police Commissioner Moretti. As always, Luc’s father had that perfect combination of authority-figure and paternal-approachability.
Despite his bad mood, Luc smiled. Moments like the one in the picture were part of the reason he became a cop. That sense of belonging to something…belonging to something decent and good.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked.
“Sources, Moretti. Sources. But my point is, this is the Luc I want people to see.”
“The twenty-three-year-old version?”
“The happy version. Where do I find him?”
Luc rubbed his chin with his palm as he pretended to consider. “I think he bailed right about the time he saw you in Brinker’s office.”
She stepped closer, getting in his face, and his hands lifted instinctively to reach for her hips, but he clenched them into fists instead.