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As if his merriment was the last straw, she turned to him, her body rigid with rage. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that I was once code-named Cobra. So your assessment of my reptilian attributes is quite accurate.”
“Of course I’m accurate. As for what kind of snake you are, I think you must have been Burton’s rival gangster or you’d been sent by another cartel to destroy the competition. Though your legitimate image was and remains flawless, I know what you really are. A criminal.” At his ridiculing pout, she narrowed her eyes. “Don’t bother spouting I’m a criminal, too. Take that to the law or shut up. But I’m telling you here and now, I’ll go to any lengths to make certain you never come near my family again.”
He sipped his tea, luxuriating in how fury intensified her allure. “You knew all that when you not only let me come near you, but let me be all over you and inside you.”
“When it was between us, that was one thing. Now you’ve involved my family, all rules have changed. You don’t want to find out what I’m capable of doing to protect them.”
“But I do want to find out. Recount some of the unspeakable things you did in their defense. Who knows, maybe I can be deterred after all.”
“Anything I previously did is irrelevant. What I’d do would be tailored to you. I’ll keep that a surprise.”
“Like you did with Mauricio?”
“Why would my adopted son be a surprise to you?”
That was the story she was going with?
From her immediate retort, she’d prepared that story in case he investigated her. He was sure she’d get her story straight with her mother and sister. She thought he wouldn’t be able to find the truth in the void she’d created in her past. She had every reason to believe she’d get away with it since Mauricio looked nothing like him. But he wouldn’t contest her claim, not now.
Maybe not ever.
She rose, flaying him with her antagonism. “Why did you come here in the first place?”
He drained his cup, put it on the tray and then rose to his feet. She took a step back, and he knew. She didn’t fear him coming closer, but her own reaction to his nearness.
All he wanted was to take her against the nearest wall.
Since that was out of the question in her family-infested home, he shrugged. “I came to find you, and they snared me. Your mother and son are inescapable. As you should know.”
“Yeah, right, the unstoppable Richard Graves finally met his immovable objects.”
“Very much so. Your mother and son are intractable. Your sister and her little urchins, too. What should I have done in your opinion to deter their determined attentions? Bared my fangs and snapped at them?”
“Gee, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled with your opinion of them. But, yeah, one look at your real face and a swipe of your forked tongue and they would have run screaming. But you sat there purring all night like a lion ingratiating himself to a naïve, male-starved pride.”
This time he guffawed. Their unlikely situation had made her think of that parable, too. “What can I say? Your mother’s cooking can soothe even me, and your little tribe is quite...entertaining. They’re such an exemplary audience. And they’re yours, so it wasn’t in my best interests to scar them for life with the sight of my hood spread out.”
“News flash, playing nice with my family wouldn’t ingratiate you to me, since that’s the one thing I won’t forgive you for.” Before he could answer, her lips thinned. “Enough of this. Give me your word you won’t come again.”
His eyebrows rose. “You think my word is worth anything?”
“Yes.”
Heat surged in his chest. She seemed to believe that, when she shouldn’t believe he had any code of honor.
Not willing to corroborate her belief, he said, “Then, maybe you don’t know anything about me after all.”
Before she could blast him again, he brushed against her as her mother and sister walked in. He promised he’d be back in answer to their new invitation, then took his leave. The women saw him to the door and stood there until he drove away.
Isabella remained in the background. He was sure she was killing him a dozen horrific ways in her mind.
The stimulation of her murderous intentions only lasted a few blocks before reality all came crashing over him again
.
He should heed her warning, should walk away. He’d seen her, he’d had her, and after he made sure she stayed away from Rose, he should disappear from her life again.
