Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Under no circumstances will I run around Dallas with a mobster looking for something that might not even exist.
There’s no silver bullet. There’s no easy fix. This case is going to crack the old-fashioned way, and a guy like Angelo’s only going to make my life harder.
I have to be honest with myself: Carmine might be Brice’s husband, but he’s still the Don of a powerful mafia family. That’s bad enough and I don’t love turning a blind eye to a criminal like that, but actively getting involved in his activities is way too far.
At least it’s too far for the Sara I’ve always been.
I’m not sure what’s too far for the Sara that slept with Angelo that night at the wedding. For a few hours, I was someone else, someone that wanted to take risks, that wanted to live a little bit. Someone that wanted to feel good for once instead of constant pressure.
But I left that Sara behind with that last kiss and I’m only ever going to be me.
“You look perfect, you know.”
I grimace and look over my shoulder in the mirror. It’s him, standing a few feet behind me, casually wearing a dark suit with his hands in his pockets, looking like an actor straight out of a movie about gangsters. Hair pushed back, lips in a smirk, tattoos poking out of his sleeves and up his neck. Angelo sucks the light into him like a black hole, and I can’t help but stare for a few beats as I try to calm my suddenly speeding heart.
This is him. This is the man that got me pregnant.
My heart starts racing. Nerves tingle down my arms and into my fingers. I shouldn’t react like this but I can’t help it.
This is Angelo, the guy I’ve thought about every day for nine weeks.
The father of my baby.
No, no, not the father of my baby, nobody is the father of my baby. This is my child and it doesn’t matter who happened to donate the sperm.
I straighten my back and tilt up my chin and meet his gaze. I’m wearing a very conservative and business-friendly outfit, just about as nonsexual as I could possibly manage, and he’s still looking at me like I’m sin incarnate.
“Hello, Angelo,” I say and extend my hand. “Nice to see you again.”
His eyebrows raise and my palm hovers there between us like a joke. I can still taste him on my lips and feel him between my legs. I’ve never been more vulnerable in my life, and I hate him so much for making me stand here and look like an idiot. But slowly, he steps forward, and we shake.
“It’s nice to see you again too, Sara.”
“Carmine told me to come meet you here.” I clear my throat. “I understand you know Nicolas?”
His grip on my palm tightens. “I’m the reason the kid’s in trouble.”
“Then I guess we should talk.”
He releases me and turns. I follow him into the hotel bar and we grab a table in the far corner. He gets us drinks: a glass of cheap champagne for me and a whiskey for him.
I can’t tell him I’m not drinking, so I place my glass in front of me and wait as he looks at me for a long moment. His eyes drift from my lips to my neck, to my chest, and back up again, and I know what he’s doing, looking at all the places he kissed and touched, and I wonder if he’s thought about me half as much as I’ve thought about him since that night. I highly doubt it—I know men like Angelo. Confident, selfish men, handsome and rich men, dangerous men. I’ve avoided men like him my whole life, and now here I am, sitting across from him with a secret.
The kind of secret that could ruin our lives.
This is such a mistake.
“Tell me about the case,” I prompt and try to keep my voice as steady as I can. I’m a lawyer and a professional. I can do this, I can keep it all business and get out alive. I have to keep going.
“Straight to business,” he says, eyes drifting down to the table. “Nicolas was sent down here to negotiate a business deal.”
“With a Mexican cartel?”
“Let’s assume someone like that. Do you really want to know the details?”
“Tell me as much as you can without incriminating anybody.”
“Right, so a business deal.” He takes a long drink and sits up straight. “It was supposed to be a simple meeting. I sent Nicolas because the kid knows Spanish and I figured that’d help with the talks. We’d already hammered out the deal on our end, and Nicolas just needed to get some details sorted, shake some hands, and get the whole thing moving. Except when he arrived at the motel where he was supposed to talk to the representative from our southern friends, he found something else entirely.”