Page 62
I hold his stare. “I just want to know how the rest of the chessboard’s moving so I can make the right moves with my pieces.”
“You worry about your lane,” he barks. “Your job is Valentina. Period. Let me worry about everything else.”
The scolding lands harder than it should. Not because he’s wrong, but because part of me was hoping for reassurance. Confirmation that someone else working on this operation has found proof that Valentina is clean like my instincts tell me.
The last fucking thing I want to do is drag an innocent woman into something she doesn’t deserve. The second-to-last thing I want to do is make myself a fool.
“You’ve got good instincts, Maddox,” Mike says after a beat. “Use them. And don’t get soft.”
Then he turns, opens the car door, and gets in like the conversation never happened.
The sedan disappears in the distance, and I’m left in the quiet lot with four words circling in my head. Do whatever it takes.
I head back to my car, climb in, and grip the steering wheel hard enough for the leather to creak.
Valentina Cordone isn’t what I expected. She’s kind. Funny. Completely disarming.
If she is involved in this shit, I’m not sure I can handle finding out.
Because if I’m wrong about her, I might just be ruined for life.
20
Valentina
8:00 p.m.
This is my second night of staying at Alfred’s place while my condo gets fixed, and despite the comfort of my longtime friend, tomato soup and grilled cheese, Pip’s snores, and the smell of fresh basil and old wood polish, I find myself itching to get back to the chaos of Magnolia.
Alfred hums quietly as he rinses dishes in the kitchen, his sleeves rolled to his elbows because he’s too stubborn to let me help him, and I clear the table with a smile permanently etched into my cheeks.
A smile that’s been there since this afternoon because of a man less than half my dinner companion’s age.
“That’s ridiculous,” I say through a laugh as Alfred claims soup tastes better when it’s stirred clockwise.
“It’s science, dear,” he replies.
“That’s not science, Alfred,” I tell him. “That’s witchcraft.”
He winks at me. “You’d be surprised how many things in life work better when you don’t question them.”
I head into the living room and plop down on the couch beside a snoring Pip. It’s the time of night when it somehow feels both early and late, and the house is so cozy and quiet, it makes the noise in my head even louder.
Shane Maddox’s laugh. The sound of my name rolling off Shane Maddox’s tongue. Shane Maddox saying he hopes to see me again as something other than neighbors.
I can’t get the man out of my head.
Maybe it’s because he saved my life so graciously, or maybe it’s just his special combination of raw magnetism, charm, and whimsy.
Whatever it is, I’m powerless to stop it. Glancing toward the kitchen to see Alfred still working on a final bowl, I pull my phone out and type before I can talk myself out of it.
Me: Do you like board games?
It takes him less than a minute to respond.
Shane: Depends. Are we talking Monopoly, or the kind of game that always ends in arguments and flipping tables?
Me: Arguments and flipping tables? What kind of board games did you play as a kid?
