Page 40 of Dirty Boss

“Doesn’t seem like your ex did either,” I said, frowning.

She snorted, that twist in her lips deepening. “No. He didn’t.”

“But he gets his happily-ever-after, and you end up working yourself to the bone for a year?”

“My parents weren’t happy that I didn’t toe the family line. They cut me off.”

I was struggling to understand. “You didn’t… You didn’t have work to fall back on? A career?”

Her spine straightened. She touched the stems of her silverware, straightening them with sharp, precise movements. “I know to a self-made man like you, it seems pathetic that I’d still be relying on my parents for money at myadvanced age.” Her words were precise, and she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “But I grew up in a different world than the one you know. I was a pretty object, and I was expected to behave. Marry. Make babies. I didn’t.”

“And they threw you out.”

Her eyes finally lifted, and they were hollow, dead. “They did.”

Part of me wanted to scoff. She was a grown woman, and she wasn’t an idiot. Why would she rely on her parents’ handouts? I’d known from a young age that I couldn’t rely on my parents for anything. Everything they touched turned to shit. My father, especially. My mother was mostly along for the ride, blinded by her love for him.

But then I thought about the way Alba moved when she was in a restaurant like this one. The things she’d known to ask Koval. The practiced, automatic steps of the dance she’d started to teach me.

Her whole life, she’d been molded to be the perfect little society woman, and then she’d been handed off to a man to marry. It was outdated and insulting and wrong. It made me angry for her. A woman who couldn’t stand to be told what to do, who was hard and driven andmean. How did she stand it? How did shesurvive?

Her eyes still held that horrible blankness, and I wanted to chase it away. I wanted to drag her over to my side of the table and needle her until she bit back or smiled or stabbed me.

I wanted to smooth my hands down her spine and draw her close, but I had the feeling that if I tried to be soft with her right now, she’d close herself off and never let me in. That was unacceptable.

…and when had Alba letting me in become a goal of mine? I forced myself not to look at that too closely and instead picked up my wine glass (by the stem) and leaned back in my chair to take a sip.

“So, your ex, your parents…who else?”

“Pardon?” she asked, brow wrinkled.

“People I need to kill.”

A surprised laugh fell from her before she could clamp her lips shut. Her eyes sparkled, and satisfaction coursed through me. “Stop it. You wouldn’t murder a fly.”

“Big concrete pour happening at our Midtown job at the end of the week,” I said casually. “Good place to dispose of a few inconvenient bodies.”

The older couple at the table next to ours glanced over, no longer pretending not to eavesdrop.

We both ignored them, eyes locked. Alba’s lips twitched. “Don’t slouch, Vaughn.”

I nudged her knee with mine and grinned. “Yes ma’am.”

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were flushed and a small, pleased smile haunted the edges of her mouth.

When we were done with our meal, I couldn’t resist the urge to guide her from the dining room with a hand on the small of her back. Our coats were checked in the lobby, so I could feel the knobby bones of her spine above the waistband of her pants. My hand splayed out as we went through the double doors into the lobby—and it was that touch, that closeness, that alerted me right away when she stiffened.

A brown-haired man stood at the coach check counter next to a woman with long, dark hair. The man glanced up when we entered, recognition flaring in his green eyes.

“Alba,” he blurted, and the woman with him spun.

Beside me, Alba turned to stone. “James,” she replied. She was frozen on the spot, tension thrumming through her back beneath the pressure of my palm. I eased my hand around her waist—it looked like she might need someone to hold her up—as she nodded to the woman. “Yvette.”

“Twice in a month!” the woman exclaimed, a smile curling her lips while her eyes went sharp and black. “What a surprise to see youhere. Did your shift just end?”

I nearly choked on my own spit.

“Lunch at Rebellieux isn’t exactly surprising,” Alba replied, ignoring the woman’s final jab. Her voice was high and tight, and she swayed slightly on her feet. Her eyes flicked to the woman, then back to the man.