Page 81 of Captivated

“They’re a little big for me to be carrying home.”

Well, she would take a cab. Still, she didn’t want to hold that huge bushel in her lap the whole way, either.

“I could have them sent over,” Margie said, picking up on Liliana’s dilemma.

“Would you?”

“They’re too lovely to keep them here. Gordo hates flowers, anyway. He’ll just complain about them until someone throws them away.”

Figures.

“That would be a shame,” Liliana said.

Margie smiled in that way of hers again. “Exactly. Go ahead, and I will get someone to have them delivered to your apartment.”

“You’re a godsend.”

The woman behind the desk laughed. “Be sure to tell Gordo that the next time he’s in one of his moods.”

“You know I will.”

Really, though, when was that man not in a mood?

The sight of Joe leaning against Liliana’s door made her pause as she rounded the final steps. With his shoulder against the wall, he looked like every woman’s wet dream in dark-wash jeans, a white T-shirt, and his leather jacket. He kept his head tilted down, and his gaze on the small pocket knife he twirled between his fingers.

Bad.

Good-looking.

Dangerous.

Yeah, literally every woman’s wet dream.

What little resolve Liliana had left about her anger with him was quickly bleeding away the longer she stared at Joe.

How strange that was …

“Aren’t you supposed to be trailing me?” she asked. “If that’s your job, and all, to watch me.”

Joe lifted his chin a fraction of an inch, and his gaze found Liliana at the top of the stairs down the hall. He didn’t look the least bit surprised to find her standing there; it was almost as though he knew she was there the whole time.

Maybe he did.

Who was she to say?

“Not today,” he said. “Maybe not tomorrow, either. I have … other things to handle right now.”

Liliana’s brow furrowed. “Well, who is watching me then?”

Joe shrugged. “I’m not given those details.”

And the better question …

Something she had been thinking about for a couple of days—ever since she saw the news broadcast, anyway.

“Why are they having people watch me? Does it have anything to do with the Earl family, considering I’ve been approached twice now by them—or someone close to them?”

Joe’s face gave nothing away when he said, “I think you should ask your father those questions, Liliana. It’s definitely not my place to give out their business. They wouldn’t appreciate it, and I’m sure you understand when I say the last thing I need to do is piss off any of those kind of men.”