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“You look beautiful, Tia.” Hal looked at her in earnest. Then he awkwardly stuck a large bouquet of flowers at her.
Valentina gasped in happy surprise and quickly reached out for the flowers. Unfortunately, both the quick intake of breath and the lean and stretch sent those spasms of pain shooting off like rockets. So, before the smile had a chance to hit Valentina’s face, a twisted grimace presented itself, and Hal took a step back as if he had been slapped.
“You don’t like roses? Damn. I knew I should have gone with the mixed bouquet, but that sonofabitch Riker told me all bitches—uh—all women— like roses.”
Valentina watched on in mute disbelief while Hal—this always confident, sometimes arrogant, and absolutelysupreme,god’s gift of a man— stumbled over his words because of what he perceived was Valentina’s displeasure at his choice of flowers.
While Valentina stood in muted awe, Hal rasped out, “Doesn’t matter, babe. We can stop by the flower shop on the way to dinner and get you anything—everything—you want.”
“No,” she stammered out.
“No?” He shot back with exasperation. “No flowers? No dinner? No what?”
“No,” Valentina shot back. “Riker wasn’t wrong about the flowers. They’re perfect. No, I don’t want to go to the flower shop, and no, I don’t want to pick out anything different.”
“Then why did you make that face like you just swallowed your own piss when I handed them to you?” Hal was genuinely confused.
“Sometimes my ribs still hurt, and when I reached for them, I got a pain. That’s all,” Valentina told him, feeling incredibly awkward that so far this date was not going at all how she had expected.
Hal scrubbed his hand over his face. “Thank god. Shit. I don’t mean thank god that your ribs hurt. It’s just that—Jesus— I’m sweating like two rabbits fucking under a wool blanket.”
“Why?” Valentina looked at him in alarm. “What’s wrong?”
“No idea.” Hal’s mouth suddenly split into a wide grin. “I guess I’m just happy to see you.”
Valentina smiled back. “I’m happy to see you too.”
Valentina looked absurdly beautiful and ridiculously adorable at the same time. She was wearing one of those pretty pastel colors that Hal loved on her—a dusty rose that brought out the slight blush that came over her body whenever she was near him—yeah, he had noticed and he liked that— a lot. Valentina’s lips were a glossy pink, the color that reminded Hal of the sweetest cotton candy and made him hungry to taste her. But the thing he loved most about her was the way her hair stuck up in adorable little patches.
He knew that he shouldn’t enjoy it as much as he did, considering how she had gotten those little tufts of new grown hair, but the sick fuck that he was, he couldn’t help thinking she looked like some kind of fierce, dark, mutant baby duckling—incredibly badass and so delicate at the same time. Whenever Valentina thought Hal wasn’t looking she would move her hand up and quickly pat the patches down in an effort to get those soft little sprouts under control—what Valentina didn’t realize was that there was not one damn moment that Hal wasn’t looking.
And the reason for this special fascination with Valentina tonight was both incredibly simple and complicated. On the long ride across the country with his brothers, Hal had had a whole lot of time to think. And what he thought most about was Valentina. By the time he reached Nevada, the decision had been made. Hal knew that he had found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
The search for something he didn’t know he was looking for was over.
For weeks, Hal had thought about nothing but getting home to her —and not just that great heart shaped ass of hers, or those sweet nipples, or those little mewing sounds she breathed out when he touched herthere. It was the way her pony-tail swung behind her like a crazed kitten’s tail, and the way she blushed whenever she caught him looking at her—or whenever he caught her looking at him. It was that backless, yellow silk dress and that prim cotton nightgown. It was the way her eyes softened with kindness and the way her spine steeled with determination.
It was everything she was, it was everything she wasn’t.
And Hal was going to marry her.
The ring was burning a hole in his pocket. Hal hoped Valentina would like it, he had had it custom made with five diamonds. One large on in the middle and four that circled around it just like the tiny constellation on her breast that he was so crazy about. He wondered if she would recognize the pattern. He was looking forward to seeing that hot blush when she did.
Yup, Hal was sure as hell gonna make that woman his wife.
It never occurred to him that she might have other plans.
It was a perfect evening in many ways. Even though Hal had arrived on his Harley, they had decided to take out Big Blue. For one thing, Valentina’s dress for the evening didn’t lend itself to a motorcycle ride, and for another reason the last time she had been on a bike was behind Rooster — a memory Valentina did not want to conjure up. Despitethe everythingthat had happened to her, Valentina took pride in knowing that she was doing extremely well. It was if one horrific life event had eclipsed the other, and her tired brain had simply been too fed up to freak out on her again. Her therapist was doing cartwheels over Valentina’s progress, and by mutual agreement, both Valentina’s sessions and her medication had been reduced.
Good and good.
Now as Valentina walked into the upscale steak house on Hal’s arm, she was feeling pretty damn confident. To Valentina’s somewhat amused observation, when the hostess showed them to their table, an unmistakable and audible hush fell over the diners—because Hal, in his dress leathers and open collared white HSMC shirt, was something. Strong, dominant, and beautiful —all eyes turned to the man who exuded such an air of powerful control. It seemed to Valentina in that moment that every woman in the room wanted to be with Hal, and every man in the room wanted to be Hal. It was a heady thought that made her giddy and warmed her with pride at being at his side.
The dinner was everything she hoped that it would be. The conversation between them flowed easily, the food was delicious, and the wine was even better. Hal’s every action was that of a gentleman—although Valentina caught Hal staring at her breasts a few times he seemed to be making a concerted effort to keep his eyes on her face.
Best of all, he didn’t seem to notice her hair.
After dinner they took a ride along the back roads. The air was balmy, the moon was full and Big Blue purred like a lion let out of his cage when Hal put down the convertible top. It didn’t surprise Valentina when Hal drove in the direction of the lake house, but as the Cadillac began to climb up the hill, a shiver of apprehension coursed through her.
