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“Alejandro, no. God, no. I—”
His phone ringing interrupted her, and he grabbed his phone from his pocket.
“Yeah? Right. Good. No, I’ll be right there.”
She gaped at him. He couldn’t leave. They were talking. She needed to tell him how she really felt about him.
He put his phone back in his pocket. “I need to go.”
“Go? Go where? We need to talk, Alejandro.”
“This has to wait. Mikey found Starla. I need to talk to her.”
“But . . . but what about me?” she asked.
“You’ll stay here until I get back.”
“And when will that be?”
“I don’t know. I need time to think about all of this. I don’t let people lie and deceive me, Cat.”
He ushered her out the door of the office and then left her staring after him, feeling cold and alone.
It’s what you deserve.
You are a liar. You did deceive him. And now you have to pay the consequences.
42
Six hours later, Alejandro walked out of the warehouse. It had taken Starla longer than he’d anticipated to crack and confess to everything.
She’d been the one to call the police on their poker game in the back room of Michelle’s and she’d wrecked Cat’s apartment.
All because she’d been in love with Vince.
“Christ, how could she fall for Vince?” Tobias asked in disgust. “The guy was a slimeball. No accounting for taste.”
She’d destroyed Cat’s apartment because Vince wouldn’t stop talking about Cat after the night when she’d been their server.
“She’s going to lose her life because she was jealous,” Cairn muttered.
Fuck. He didn’t much like the idea either. He didn’t usually kill women.
“She called the cops on us,” he said. “What would you have me do?”
“Because Vince went missing, and she thought he was with Cat. She was hoping he’d turn up to the meeting, then get arrested,” Tobias pointed out. “But yeah, I get it.”
“She knows too much.” He shook his head. “I can’t keep her alive or she might talk.”
“I’ve got it, Boss,” Mikey told him. “I’ll take care of her.”
He eyed Mikey for a moment. He was young, but moving up the ranks. Maybe he could handle this. He gave the other man a nod before climbing into his car with Cairn and Tobias in the front.
He wanted to go home to Cat. To tell her that it was Starla who’d wrecked her apartment. That she’d never scare her again.
But he wasn’t ready to see her.
She’d lied to him.
Sure, she’d had her reasons. He understood them. But damn it . . . he fucking hated that she’d been keeping things from him.
And he really, really hated that she’d put herself in danger. He ought to go home and take his belt to her ass.
But he didn’t trust himself to be around her right now. He was too angry. Too raw.
He needed to think this through rationally. To figure out the best path forward.
So instead of going home to Cat, he went to his office at the Circus. He tried to work. But his mind just kept going back to Cat.
Not all of it could have been a lie. The way she’d reacted to his touch, she couldn’t fake that.
How she’d protected them from being shot by throwing a vibrator at that car jacker.
Fuck.
He tried to imagine his life without her in it and it seemed so much duller. So empty and dark. She brought light and laughter.
But he couldn’t go through what he had with Elena.
There was a knock on his door and he glanced up, happy for a distraction. “Come in.”
Surprise filled him as Reuben entered. The other man looked haggard. Worn out. “What are you doing here at . . . just after ten in the morning.” Shit. Where had that time gone?
“Just got here. Tried to call you, but it went to voicemail. Fuck, man, you look like shit. Have you slept at all?”
“No.” He checked his phone. Dead. He plugged it into his charger.
“I’m staying at your place. I dropped my stuff off there.”
“Sure,” he said distractedly.
Wait. Cat.
“Were you going to tell me that Cat was staying at your house?” Reuben asked.
Fuck. He poured them both a drink as he gathered his thoughts.
“Yeah. Eventually. You saw her?”
“No, she was in her room. Bernard was acting like a guard dog. He told me not to disturb her. That she’d had a rough night. Tell me what’s going on.”
So he went through everything. From rescuing her from Vince to her apartment, to his meeting with the others. Then he told Reuben about her lies and deception.
Reuben whistled at the end of it and held out his glass to him for a top-up.
“That’s a lot, man.”
He nodded and checked his messages. Three from Bernard tattling on Cat. Although, to his surprise, rather than being complaints, Bernard sounded worried. He claimed that she’d been awake most of the night, had refused breakfast, and only just fallen asleep about an hour or so ago.
