Page 122 of Duty

Pink nodded. “I am, yeah.”

“Oh. Hello.”

Haven’s attention was back on a happy Snaps, then, but when she noticed the man hadn’t replied to her or said anything else, she glanced up again. Pink wasn’t looking at her, now, but rather, at something across the street.

She looked that way too—quieted suddenly at the sight of a familiar woman coming out of the restaurant with a wave over her shoulder.

Andino’s mother.

Haven stood up, but by the time she thought to speak again, Kim was already gone in a town car that had pulled up to the side of the road. Kim never saw Haven, and probably had no idea she was even there at all. Had Haven kept walking across the road, she would have walked right into Andino’s mother as she came out of the restaurant.

What were the chances that it hadn’t happened? What were the odds that this unknown, strange man who worked for Andino would stop Haven before she could cross the street at just the right time?

Had that been … purposeful?

“Well, I’ll let you go see the boss, then,” Pink said.

Haven nodded at the man—she couldn’t find it in herself to be pissed off at him, frankly. He was just someone who was on Andino’s payroll, and doing what he was told. It was with Andino that Haven had a fucking bone to pick.

“Have a good day, Pink.” Haven gave Snaps one last scratch behind his ear, and told the dog, “And you be a good boy, Snaps.”

She swore the dog smiled.

If only that made her happy at the moment. She was feeling a little too heavy for that.

Haven didn’t bother to say anything else before crossing the street. She was quick to enter the restaurant, and bypass the girl at the podium who would usually direct Haven to whatever table until Andino was called out of his office to join her. She didn’t even bother to search for him on the floor—she knew where he would be.

Sure enough, she found him in his office just beyond the kitchen. Andino was just sitting down at his desk—maybe more proof that he had walked his mother out of the business—when Haven darkened the doorway.

“Did you set that up?” she asked.

Andino glanced up—green eyes nailing into her with an intensity that might have taken her breath away at any other time. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your mother was just here, wasn’t she? I saw her leave.”

His face remained passive, but Haven wasn’t stupid. It was only when Andino took great pains to hide his emotions externally that he was doing so with a purpose, and for a reason. Otherwise, he couldn’t be bothered to try.

“She was here,” he said. “So?”

“Pink—ring any bells?”

Andino leaned back in his office chair. “Haven—”

“Did you make sure I wouldn’t run into your mother when I arrived here? Just answer the fucking question.”

His gaze darted away from hers, and even if he hadn’t admitted the truth in his next statement, that would have been enough to tell her what she wanted to know. “I don’t need any more problems at the moment, so yeah, I made sure she wouldn’t have any information to run to my father or someone else in my family at the moment.”

God.

Yeah, that’s what she wanted to know.

Not what she wanted to hear.

Those were two different things.

He was purposely keeping her a secret—hiding her from people who did not approve of his involvement with a woman that they didn’t think was acceptable. That right there should have been enough for Haven to turn the hell around, and leave Andino right where he stood.

Instead, she found herself frozen to the spot.