AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And you’re offering me that same deal? His eyes were hard, but his tone was conversational, friendly even.
“I’m offering you the same deal as I offered Pauli, yes. I’m guessing you might want to negotiate something a little different than he did. But I’m game for anything,” Valentina told him. Then after a brief hesitation she said, “Of course, my father can’t ever find out about this.”
“Discretion is my middle name, darlin’. But …”
“But what?” Valentina’s heart rose with hope. She was right, he didn’t want this arrangement any more than she did.
“I guess I’d like to hear exactly what you did to make Pauli happy.”
“Well, Pauli’s really into horses and—dogs.”
Hal choked on his own spit and started coughing and sputtering.
“Are you okay?” Valentina looked at him in alarm.
When he was finally able to catch his breath, Hal managed to choke out. “Did I just hear you say that the guy that you’re playinglet’s make a deal withis into …what the fuck?”
“More horses than dogs, I think,” Valentina told him. “I didn’t ask him too much about it really. I figured the less I knew the better. I’d just drop Pauli off at the Crossroads so he could do his thing. You know that big brick building where Junction 63 meets the Highway 12?”
Hal scowled while he frantically tried to remember what the hell was on the corner of 63 and 12. Then he let out a long breath of relief. “The Off-Track Betting Place? You dropped him off at O.T.B.? That’s all you did for him?
Valentina shrugged her shoulders. “Well sometimes Uncle Pauli went to the harness races or to watch the greyhounds race but yeah, that kept him happy. So, what about you?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, what can I do for you?”
“Baby, you don’t want to know,” Hal muttered.
“Try me.” She cocked her head.
Hal’s ice-blue eyes deepened to cobalt as he made a slow and blatantly sexual assessment of her body. Valentina stood rooted to the spot; she felt her nerve endings gather in revolt as her nipples tingled and swelled. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her body’s traitorous and involuntary response to him. His gaze slowly lifted to her mouth then to her eyes.
“Try you? I’d like that,” he said with a predatory smile. “I’d like that a lot—to try you. But darlin’, the things that you would have to do to make me happy have nothing to do with you sending me away. As a matter of fact, they would have everything to do with keeping me real close. And I would do things to you that would knock that wide-eyed look of yours right into the next galaxy.”
Valentina hesitated only a second before her face flamed with sudden and immediate understanding.
“But, shit yeah, I’m definitely willing to negotiate a deal,” He leaned in and whispered low into her ear.
This was not going at all how she had planned. Hal might be a guy worthy of making her loins roar like a hungry lion, but he was also being a major dick about the wholelet’s make a deal thing.And Valentina had the very distinct feeling that Hal was playing with her.
Valentina moved out of his reach, narrowed her eyes at him, and stated imperiously, “Non potevi gestire nemmeno se sono venuto con istruzioni.”
Then she turned on her heels and huffed away
“Hey, I thought Italian was supposed to be the language of love?” He called out to her. Then his eyes filled with appreciation as he watched the delicious curve of her hips swing lustily with each angry stomp.
“Non potevi gestire nemmeno se sono venuto con istruzioni.”Hal punched the words into the translation app on his phone. It took him a while to get the spelling right, but when he did, Hal took a double take at the words and then burst out laughing.
“You couldn’t handle me even if I came with instructions.”
Game on.
Hal lay on his back in the guest bedroom of the Abruzzi home. He glanced through the dark at the bedside clock.
One thirty a.m.
It had been four days since he and Valentina had had their little tête-à-tête. No sign of threat, no word from Gianni, and no change of orders from Prosper. He had never been so bored in his life, and Hal knew damn well that Valentina was hell bent on making sure he stayed that way. Her routine was: up at 5 a.m., bath no later than 5:10—who the hell took a bath in the morning—and then downstairs for a piece of fruit and yogurt by 5:45. Next,Little Miss Nose in the Airwould arrive promptly at the garage area at exactly at 6:00 a.m. Then, just to be extra ornery, she refused to sit in the front seat with him. Without fail, Valentina would plunk her uppity ass down in the backseat and expect Hal to play Hoke to her Miss Daisy.
