Page 49 of Waste of Worth

Dino didn’t want her worrying over him, though, so he deflected her questions in the best way he could. “Something was off in the Accounts Receivable for last month. The numbers didn’t add up. I need you to go back over the ledgers again before the numbers get logged in.”

Karen sighed. “You know my numbers are good, Dino.”

They were.

She was damn good at keeping the books.

Or cooking them to hide shit, for that matter.

Still, he was the boss.

Her lover, sure, but the boss just the same.

“Look over them again,” he said with a shrug. “Maybe it was just my eyes that saw something that wasn’t there.”

Karen gave him another one of her looks, then finally nodded. “All right.”

Dino checked his watch, noting the time. He had been trying to stay away from this particular restaurant as much as possible this week, just in case, but that hadn’t worked out very well for him that morning when he’d woken up with an ache in his chest. An ache he couldn’t really explain, but left him feeling cold and lonely in a way he hadn’t experienced before.

He knew instantly what it was.

He missed Karen.

It was almost too easy for him to get in his car and decide he’d work out of the restaurant where she worked for the day. It was almost strange the way the ache calmed the very second he was driving in her direction, knowing he was just minutes from seeing her.

Dino had a pretty good grasp on how messed up he was, but when he put Karen into the picture, it was almost as if all of that craziness went away for a time. He didn’t have to be the Outfit man, the no nonsense Capo, or the brother trying to keep his siblings safe and clear of pain and manipulation.

He just had to be him.

That was all Karen knew.

It was all she asked for.

Dino liked that a lot.

Problem was, he didn’t know how to deal with the way it left him feeling.

Like maybe he was going to have to end whatever he had going on with her because getting too close could be dangerous—but he wasn’t sure if it was too dangerous for her, or him.

He was just a mess.

“Do you want to do dinner later?” Karen asked, still hanging out the back exit door.

Dino didn’t think on that offer for long, because despite how much he wanted to agree to it, he knew that he couldn’t. Not with Ben in a fit and liable to send someone after Dino. Thankfully, no one had ever gotten in the way of one of Ben’s lessons, as far as Dino knew, and he didn’t want to start now.

Especially not with Karen.

“Raincheck,” Dino said, glancing away from Karen’s crestfallen face.

He didn’t want to see her sadness.

He didn’t want her to see his lies.

“Soon, though,” he added.

“You sure?”

Dino forced back the stinging sensation prickling at his throat, the words trying to take back what he had said and grab onto what she was offering. It wasn’t a good time.