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I fake a lunge for him and he almost shits himself, peeling out so fast into the street, that he clips a passing bus. There’s a blast of a horn and then he’s racing away, the bus in pursuit.
I look at my car and then at the purse in my hand.
I could still walk away. I’ve no moral obligation to give it back to her.
I walk back into the diner. He took it when he shouldn’t have done. I’ll put it back. Then I’ll go.
I walk inside. A few people look my way but none of them recognize me. That’s the thing about small towns, they don’t know what they should be scared of. None of them know how dangerous I am, how many men I’ve killed. I don’t care. I won’t be here long enough for it to matter.
Chloe’s still eating, staring into the distance, shoulders slumped. I want to tell her to sit up straight, chest out, and project some confidence. Show the world that it’ll never defeat you.
Not my job.
I walk toward her and as I reach her table, I bend slightly to push her purse back into her handbag. Only at the same time I do that, she’s dropped her napkin and she’s leaning down to pick it up. She spots me with the purse in my hand, an inch from her handbag. She looks up at me. “You?” she says in shock. “You’re stealing my purse.”
“Lady, if I was going to steal from you, you’d never know it.”
There’s my damned ego getting the better of me. Couldn’t resist saying that, could I? Way to go, Enzo, good work.
She snatches the purse from my hand. “So you admit you’re a thief.”
“You should watch your things more closely,” I say, turning and walking out before I get a chance to do anything really stupid like kiss those luscious-looking pink lips of hers. Or bend her over the table and fuck her before she gets another word out.
“I’ll tell the sheriff about you,” she calls after me as I march for the door.
“Go for it,” I tell her before the door swings shut behind me.
I climb into my car and put it into gear. Rolling out of the lot, I try to focus.
That could have gone better. I didn’t let my lust get the better of me. That’s something. Didn’t drag her outside and into the back seat to show her just what happens when you threaten to bring the law down on a man like me. Managed to resist picking her up and carrying her out here for the kind of night she’ll never forget. Got that going for me, at least.
I can pick up women back in the city. I don’t need to complicate this job by fucking with my past.
I’ve got two things to do. Nothing else matters. Get the necklace. Get the file. I don’t need to talk to her again to do either of those things.
It’s just one job like any other.
So why’s this one proving so difficult?
I already know the answer but I don’t like it. It’s not just because she’s cute and dorky. It’s not just because of the spark that passed between us when she fell and I grabbed her.
Nor is it because she’s done something to me no other woman has ever managed. Made me feel like I could turn from the monster I am back into the man I haven’t been for twenty years. Ever since that night in the woods. That night when everything changed. For both of us.
It’s all that but it’s something else as well. Something much more important. It’s the fact that, although she has no idea, the last time I saw her I ruined her life forever.
3
CHLOE
* * *
Istart my day by feeding Spock. I don’t have a lot of choices. He’s pawing at my face from the moment I wake up.
“There was me thinking you loved Maisie,” I tell him as I get out of bed. “At least you still like me, right?”
He jumps down off the bed and does his best to trip me up as I head, bleary-eyed, through to the kitchen. I feed him and he starts to tuck in.
“Easy life for you, right,” I say, scratching his ear before getting distracted by the TV.
