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“Seth did.”
“Who’s Seth?”
I swallow hard and keep his gaze while I give him the truth that’s hard to state aloud. “My husband.”
* * *
CHAPTERFOUR
Sergio
At first,I wondered if Mario slipped something into my drink last night. He’s not above a little aiding and abetting me when he thinks I’m too high-strung. Because when I first saw this woman, I swore there really was a Goldilocks in my bed.
Gino told me he saw someone on the security footage, and when I saw her—a slender little figure with long, long blonde hair all the way to her waist, tucked into one of our beds like a sleeping child—I had to see for myself. Why was a child sleeping in one of our beds?
But this woman is no child. She’s small and slight and has an air of innocence about her, no doubt. But when I get a closer look at her, I can tell. She isallwoman.
Younger than me. Way,wayyounger. Maybe even illegally younger than me. She looks like a penniless pauper come in from an Amish homestead, dressed in clothes little more than rags, her feet dirty from a long walk. I went through her bag before she woke and found no money and a case for her glasses. Not even a change of clothes or some coins.
She didn’t stir when I came into the room.
She didn’t move when I sat down in a chair and watched her sleep.
I couldn’t make myself leave. I watched this childlike, unsophisticated woman sleep and wondered who she was.
And I still don’t have a fucking clue.
Homeless woman?
Battered woman?
She says her husband put those bruises on her.
I’ll find out who that son of a bitch is.
I never even pretend to be a good man, but only assholes beat women.
“Your husband,” I repeat, staring at her. “He hit you?”
Her wide blue eyes stare at me, uncomprehending. “Well, yes,” she says, as if this is normal. “I upset him.”
The need to punch something smacks me in the solar plexus, but I hold my temper because I can see the fear in her eyes.
I want to ask her where he is, but I don’t want to ask another question she won’t answer. I try to frame my question in a way she can answer.
“Is he nearby?”
A shake of her head, followed by an audible growling of her stomach.
“Are you hungry?”
“Finally,” she says with a relieved sigh and a smile revealing straight, white teeth and a radiance that could light up the universe. My heart does a strange and unexpected flip, such a foreign feeling I don’t recognize it.“A question I can answer! Yes, I’m starving. And I may not have any money, so I can’t offer to pay you, but I do have skills that I’m happy to barter and trade to thank you for allowing me to sleep here.”
Skills.
That she can barter and trade.
Like we’re goddamn pioneers.
