Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Before I can move, she grabs my face and kisses both my cheeks.
“My God,” she says. “Look at you. So handsome. So serious.” She frowns. “But too thin. Are you eating?” She shifts her gaze to Robin. “And who is this?”
Robin straightens. “I’m Robin Bellamy.”
Valentina lifts her brows. She knows the name. Then she looks back at me. “A new girlfriend?”
“No,” I say. “Not exactly.”
She isn’t my girlfriend. Until an hour or so ago, she was my prisoner. A woman I was ordered to hurt. A woman I have now stolen from the man who owns my fear. A woman whose mouth I’ve had under mine, whose body I’ve had against mine, whose voice I can still hear in that cell when everything between us turned dangerous in a different way.
We had fantastic sex in a prison cell.
That’s it.
But damn…I wish it were more.
There is something between us.
Something hot and impossible and wrong. And I can’t start picking apart what that means until I know she won’t be dragged back there.
Valentina watches my face. “Not exactly,” she repeats. “That sounds complicated.”
“It is.” I clear my throat. “We ran into trouble with Vega.”
Valentina wrinkles her forehead. “Diego?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind I can’t explain on your doorstep.”
She steps back. “Inside.”
I usher Robin in first.
The house smells like old wood and flowers. The entryway is tiled in faded blue and white.
I look away from the stairs.
Too late.
The memories are already invading.
My mother, barely out of her teens, laughing in this doorway, younger than I am now. My mother brushing my hair back. My mother telling me to wait in the kitchen and not speak to anyone unless Valentina said I could. My mother disappearing upstairs with men.
Valentina shuts the door and locks it. “Tell me what you need, mijo.”
“We need a place to lie low,” I say, “until I figure out our next move.”
She offers a wide smile. “Of course. We have plenty of empty rooms tonight. I’ll have clean sheets put in one of them.”
My stomach tightens.
A room. In this house. A place where my mother sold herself so I could eat, so I could have shoes, so I could be sent away from rooms like these and become nothing like the men who walked into them.
I became worse instead.
The irony is almost funny.
Almost.
“Thank you,” I say.
“If you are not together,” Valentina says, “I should prepare two rooms.”
“Yes,” I say. “That would—”
“No,” Robin cuts in. “I want to stay with him.”
21
ROBIN
The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’m saying them.
“I want to stay with him.”
Cruz is staring at me.
So is Señora Valentina.
And of the two, Cruz is the one I can’t look away from.
For one insane second, he looks almost happy.
Heat climbs up my neck.
“That’s not—” I draw in a deep breath. “I mean, I don’t want to sleep alone.”
Señora Valentina’s expression doesn’t change.
Cruz’s does. The brief light in his eyes dims.
I hate this.
I hate the way my body keeps reacting like it hasn’t gotten the memo that Cruz Moreno is dangerous. Like it’s forgotten he worked for Diego Vega until roughly twenty minutes ago.
“I mean,” I continue, because apparently I’ve decided to make this worse, “after everything that happened, I just… I don’t want to be in a room by myself.” I cross my arms. “Not because I’m afraid of this place, Señora. I just mean, if something bad happens, I’d rather have someone there who can…you know…”
“Protect you,” Cruz says.
“Yes.” I swallow. “Exactly.”
Señora Valentina looks between us a moment, her forehead wrinkled. “One room,” she says finally, “with clean sheets.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Señora Valentina gives me a small smile. “You are safe here for tonight.” She switches her gaze to Cruz. “You know I keep knives tucked in all corners of this house if you need them.”
He nods. “I remember.”
I swallow. I don’t like the sound of that. If this place is so safe, why does Valentina need to stash weapons?
I take a deep breath in. No matter what, any place is better than that cell.
I’m okay. I’m alive. I’m breathing.
For tonight.
Not forever.
But tonight is more than I had an hour ago.
Cruz shifts beside me. My awareness of him seems to live under my skin now.
Not good.
Because I can’t feel anything for Cruz.
Attraction, yes. Fine. I can admit that, though only because denial would make me a liar and an idiot. The man is beautiful in that fierce, ruined way women shouldn’t want. Hard jaw. Dark eyes. A body built by violence and survival instead of gym memberships and vanity. A voice cold enough to cut stone but low enough to make my thighs quiver.
But feelings?
No.
Absolutely not.
He helped me escape.
He put his own life on the line.
He walked me through that labyrinth and lied to Zabala’s face to get me out of a prison, saved me from being beaten bloody for ransom photos.