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“This place is beautiful,” she says.
“Not as beautiful as you.”
She laughs. “That was quick.”
“Well, I was literally just thinking it,” I smirk. “Just give me a second and I’ll make our orders.”
I walk into the living room – pausing to give Sparky his deserved pat on the head – and then pick up the phone and make the room service order. It’s hard not to note as I do so that this place is fancier than most restaurants people visit, so I don’t feel too bad about dining my princess here and not out in public … where it’d be too dangerous anyway.
I return to her, leaving the door cracked slightly so we’ll hear the knock at the door.
“Are you sure we’re safe here?” Dakota murmurs.
I nod shortly. “In all the years I’ve been doing this, the Bratva have never hit anywhere like this hotel. They know they’d be signing their own arrest warrant if they did that. They may have paid off some low-level officials, but once you start with a place like this, the big guns get involved.”
“How long have you been doing this?” Dakota asks quietly.
I smirk, but it comes out shaky. I can feel it.
“About thirty,” I say.
“That means you started when you were about ten?”
“Thereabouts,” I say, nodding.
“Whoah,” she says. “That’s crazy.”
“I guess so,” I laugh grimly.
She folds her arms, staring at me.
“What?” I ask.
“What?” she counters. “Are you seriously going to drop a bomb like that and expect me not to want to know more?”
I sigh, turning to the stars. “After my parents died in the plane crash, I went to live with my uncle and aunt. One day some bad men came to do some bad shit to my aunt, and something in me snapped. I defended her. I hurt one of the men pretty badly and I killed the other with one of my uncle’s guns. Felix was out at the time, so he couldn’t help. When my uncle saw what I’d done, I guess maybe he thought he’d harness it. Ever since then, I’ve been in the trade.
“But I had a rule from day one. I’d only ever take a contract on someone who’s done something worth dying over. If they’ve assaulted a lady, touched a kid, murdered an innocent civilian … then I’ll happily put them in the ground. But I’m not and I’ve never been some mindless thug who’ll kill anybody for any price.”
“How many men have you killed?” she asks.
“Is this your idea of dinner conversation?” I snap.
She flares right back. “If I’m going to be the mother of your child, don’t you think I deserve to know?”
Admiration dances inside of me when I see how fiery and sassy she is. I reach across the table and take her hand, feeling the heat of her.
“Twenty-nine, Dakota … well, thirty if that bastard back at the cottage didn’t make it.”
I expect her to flinch or pull away, but instead, she just looks at me with her brave eyes, the same way she looked at me back at Dobry’s estate.
“And they were all evil—the sort of men who’d break into an innocent family’s house and kill a little girl’s parents?”
I swallow, thinking about how hellish it must’ve been for her, to be there on the night it happened.
“Yes,” I tell her. “I’ll never let anything happen to you, Dakota. Ever.”
She squeezes my hand and stares at me in wordless thanks, a light smile whispering across her lips.
“What happened to Felix and your aunt?” she asks.
“Felix was killed on a job,” I say. “My aunt lives in Spain with her new husband.”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she says.
“It’s fine,” I say, but there’s more rumbling emotion in my voice than I expected. “It was … It’s fine.”
“What, Damian?” she murmurs.
I realize I’m clenching my fists as I rest them on the table so that when Dakota reaches across to supportively pat my hand, she’s actually touching a gnarled fury-filled bear’s paw. I unclench it with an effort and let her hold my hand, though the fire racing around me makes holding hers back impossible.
“It’s nothing,” I say, turning back to the stars, focusing on them, and trying to slow my breathing.
She stands up – her chair scraping on the floor makes me look – and walks around the edge of the table. She drops into my lap, throws her arms around my shoulders, and glares at me. She glares at me hard. She glares at me like the only woman I’ll ever need, demanding an answer from me.
“It is not nothing,” she snaps. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting so weird. So why don’t you cut the crap and tell me what’s going on, hmm?”
“Since when did you get so feisty?” I smirk, gliding my hand up the sweet sweat-tinged coolness of her thigh.
