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He blew out a breath, not wanting to answer that. “I didn’t realize Antonio’s Pizza provided complimentary therapy.”
“Hey, taking orders all day gets boring,” Jenny teased, as though she wasn’t just as wild as Addison. “He’ll be there in sixty minutes or less.”
With that she hung up on him. He trudged back to the car, hoping he could lie low long enough for the enclosed transport to arrive.
Chapter 3
Bits of coffee ground floated around the bottom of Mila’s cup, and she stared at them morosely. Screw drinking this shit. From now on she was going to skip brewing it and just chew the beans.
Exhaustion dragged at her limbs, and she wanted to put her head down on the kitchen table and take a nap, but since she was here to visit her dad, falling asleep might have been kind of rude. Especially when he and his wife were cooking for her.
“Long night, M?” her father asked, setting a plate of bacon and eggs down in front of her.
“Thanks.” She pulled the plate closer. He made the best breakfast in town, as far as she was concerned. He’d had plenty of time to perfect it since he’d been kicked off the force. “Too much thinking,” she admitted.
That much was true, but a lot of her lying awake for hours had been thinking about running into Atlas at the wedding and how he’d whispered in her ear, making her heart beat wildly. She’d wanted him to kiss her so badly
, and that was just wrong, but no matter how hard she’d tried to put him out of her mind so she could go to sleep, she’d start thinking about him again. Her mind had drifted into fantasies about the kiss that hadn’t happened, and what might have followed.
When she’d finally fallen asleep it was to dream of him fucking her against a wall with her whole precinct watching and catcalling. She’d woken up horrified, and yet painfully aroused from the memory of how he’d manhandled her and controlled her in her dream. Maybe she should have taken the edge off, but she’d denied herself that, and so now she was tired and irritable. And she had to see him again.
The wedding thing had been a weird twist of fate. Joel, her old partner, had begged her to go with him. He was distantly related to the bride’s side of the family but had ended up spending the whole night on his phone while Mila grew more and more agitated. Joel hadn’t seemed to make the connection between the groom’s family and her case. Maybe she should have mentioned it to Joel and left, but seeing Atlas had been a game changer. She’d watched him dance, hang out with his friends and family. With infinite patience, he’d picked up the flower girl and spun her around over and over. He’d affectionately teased his brothers, their wives, and the guys who owned the kink club. Despite his menacing size, he seemed like a good guy.
And damn, was he hot.
Maybe she just had a silly crush and should ask to be reassigned, but the problem was she had no good excuse. Being so sexually attracted to Atlas was a major problem, but she wasn’t about to admit it to anyone, let alone her boss.
“Well, I’m here to bounce ideas off of. Lord knows I’ve got nothing but time.” Her father chuckled with self-derision.
Bill Palmer had learned to lie in the bed he’d made for himself, but going from a well-respected detective to being tossed out in disgrace had taken its toll. It had been seven years since he’d tampered with evidence to protect their neighbor’s son from prosecution. Even though it had been a minor charge, Bill had gotten caught in a way that made it impossible for the brass to turn a blind eye, so he was quietly forced into early retirement.
That shadow had lingered over Mila’s career too. It was hard enough being a female cop in her precinct, and now it felt as though a lot of her colleagues were just waiting for her to go dirty or screw up.
It would have been easy to get mad at her dad, especially since he’d known she was heading into the academy to follow in his footsteps. He’d put her reputation at risk. But Jason was like the son he’d never had. They both loved him like family, and her dad was the only male role model Jason had in his life. He’d been playing around at the fringes of a gang and had stolen a gun to prove himself. Afterward, he’d freaked out. Her dad had thought he’d learned his lesson and couldn’t bear to see him in jail. Mila couldn’t blame him for covering for him. Some of the guys he’d worked with felt the same way. Others looked at him with disgust. It’d straightened Jason out, though, and now he was in law school. Normally Mila didn’t believe in letting criminals off the hook—even at a young age—but the lines blurred when it came to people you loved.
She shoveled eggs into her mouth, and let the interesting combination of spices distract her from her thoughts.
“Real butter and bacon fat make all the difference.” Her father sat down across from her and started eating too.
“Shhh . . . don’t tell me. My arteries can’t know about this.”
Veronika breezed into the room and grabbed some cubed cantaloupe out of the fridge, then poured herself a cup of coffee before sitting down with them.
“Ugh. Bill, you’re killing me,” Vero complained, watching as he took another bite of his breakfast.
“I would have made you some too.”
“I know,” she groaned. “But I can’t be your trophy wife anymore if I let myself go.” She popped a piece of melon into her mouth and chewed it daintily. “I’ll just sit here and eat sadness while I fantasize about bacon grease.”
When her father had started dating Veronika, a recent immigrant from Russia who was only a few years older than Mila, she’d written her off as a gold digger. It was still awful to think about how quick she’d been to jump to that conclusion. Vero was not only a sweetheart, but she’d been her father’s rock when he’d lost his job, and was now making more money as a therapist than Bill had ever made. How anyone could not like the woman was a mystery.
“Eat the bacon, gorgeous. It’s good for the soul.”
“You know what else is good for the soul?” She winked at him, and he gave her a hungry look that had nothing to do with breakfast.
“Guys!” Mila shielded her eyes and kept eating. “I’m still here, you know!”
The two of them laughed.
