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Jenny Shepard had survived arms dealers, foreign intelligence officers, political sharks, Senate hearings, and one very memorable knife fight in Marseille. It was frankly insulting that Leroy Jethro Gibbs could still undo her composure with nothing more than a look over the rim of his coffee cup.
She stood in the bullpen with a file tucked against her ribs, wearing the calm, polished expression that had made admirals sit straighter and junior agents suddenly remember paperwork they had failed to submit. Her heels clicked once against the floor as she stopped near his desk, and every head in the bullpen pretended not to notice.
Tony was very busy typing nothing. McGee was reading the same line on his monitor for the fourth time. Ziva, traitor that she was, looked openly entertained.
Gibbs leaned back in his chair and looked up at Jenny like she had personally interrupted something important, even though they both knew he had finished the report ten minutes ago and was now only refusing to hand it over because he enjoyed making her come down here.
“Director,” he said.
“Agent Gibbs.”
His mouth twitched. Not a smile. Never something so generous in public. Just the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth, there and gone so quickly anyone else might have missed it.
Jenny did not miss things.
“That my file?” she asked.
“Depends.”
“On?”
“Whether you’re askin’ nicely.”
Tony’s fingers froze over his keyboard. McGee made a strangled sound that he tried to disguise as a cough. Ziva’s eyebrows rose.
Jenny’s expression did not change, but her eyes sharpened in a way Gibbs had always liked too much for his own good. “I am your director,” she said smoothly. “I do not ask nicely. I issue instructions.”
“Yeah?” Gibbs reached for the file on his desk, lifted it between two fingers, and held it just out of her easy reach. “Must’ve missed that memo.”
Jenny stepped closer.
It was a deliberate mistake. Or perhaps not a mistake at all. With Gibbs, distance had always been the first battlefield and the last defense. Too far, and he brooded. Too close, and he looked at her like Paris had never ended, like every closed door in the Navy Yard was merely a suggestion.
She extended her hand.
He did not give her the file.
Her gaze dropped briefly to his fingers. Strong, steady, scarred in a dozen small ways he would never explain unless she caught him in the right mood with the right bourbon. Then her eyes returned to his. “You are enjoying this.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
Gibbs stood. Not abruptly. Not enough to startle the team. Just a slow, fluid rise from his chair that turned the air between them warmer than it had any right to be in the middle of a federal office building.
Jenny’s chin lifted a fraction. Behind her, Tony whispered, “Oh, this is better than cable.”
“DiNozzo,” Gibbs said without looking away from Jenny.
“Working, boss.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Pretending to work, boss.”
“Do it quieter.”
Jenny should have left. Truly, she should have taken the file, reminded Gibbs that she could still bury him in mandatory sensitivity training if provoked, and gone back upstairs where directors belonged and where her pulse did not make inconvenient decisions.
Instead, she held out her hand again. “The file, Jethro.”
There it was. The shift. It was almost imperceptible, but she knew him too well. The blue of his eyes darkened slightly, his amusement settling into something quieter, more focused. Her use of his first name in the bullpen was rare. Not forbidden. Not accidental either.
He knew that. Of course he knew that. The infuriating man knew everything he was meant to know and several things he had no business knowing at all.
He placed the file in her hand, but he did not let go immediately.
For one suspended second, her fingers brushed his.
It was nothing. It was a handoff. It was paper and skin and a bullpen full of agents pretending they had suddenly become fascinated by their monitors.
It was also Paris hotel balconies, rain on cobblestones, bad coffee in safe houses, her hand at the back of his neck, his voice low in her ear, and every unfinished conversation they had carried back across the Atlantic like contraband.
Jenny drew the file away first.
Gibbs noticed.
His expression said he noticed. Worse, his expression said he knew she knew he noticed.
She hated him a little. Not seriously. Just enough to keep balance.
“Thank you,” she said.
“See? Nicely.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Careful.”
“Always am.”
“That has never been true a day in your life.”
This time, he did smile. Small. Crooked. Private, despite the audience.
And damn him, it worked.
Jenny turned before her own mouth could betray her, but she had only made it two steps before Tony, apparently suffering from either a death wish or a complete lack of survival instinct, said, “Director, for what it’s worth, I think you won that round.”
Jenny paused.
Gibbs’ head turned slowly.
Tony’s face went blank with immediate regret.
Jenny looked over her shoulder, her red hair catching the harsh bullpen light and somehow making it look intentional. “Of course I did, Agent DiNozzo.”
Then she looked at Gibbs. A calm look. A director’s look. Except for the spark underneath.
Gibbs saw it. He always saw it.
“I always win.”
She walked away before he could answer, because retreat was not defeat when done in heels with perfect posture.
The elevator doors opened for her as if even the building knew better than to keep her waiting. She stepped inside, turned, and found Gibbs still watching her from the bullpen.
Not staring openly, just watching with that maddening stillness of his, as if he had all the time in the world and every intention of using it to get under her skin.
The doors began to close.
Jenny allowed herself one smile. Barely there. Just enough.
Gibbs’ eyes narrowed faintly. He had seen it. Of course he had.
The doors slid shut, and Jenny leaned back against the elevator wall for exactly three seconds, pressing the file lightly against her chest.
Ridiculous man.
Ridiculous, impossible, dangerous man.
She glanced down at the file and found a yellow sticky note attached to the front:
Dinner. My place. 1900. Bring bourbon.
Jenny stared at it then she laughed, soft and unwilling and entirely alone.
When the elevator opened on MTAC level, Cynthia looked up from her desk. “Director?”
Jenny smoothed her expression back into place and peeled the note from the file. “Yes?”
“Everything all right?”
“Fine.” Jenny tucked the note into the pocket of her blazer. “Agent Gibbs is just under the impression that he’s clever.”
Cynthia wisely said nothing.
Jenny walked toward her office, still feeling the ghost of his fingers against hers.
The problem with Jethro was not that he knew her too well. The problem was that he knew exactly how much she liked it.