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The good thing was that we fundamentally understood each other. We came from a similar rough background, and while I at least had my family for guidance, he had no one except himself. Luckily, he was pretty smart and used it to put himself through school. Still, he had bad habits holding him back, and one of them, gambling, led him to me.
I guessed we were friends, but it was hard to form attachments living the way we did and to give something you didn’t even know how to give. I understood that, which was why we got along so well.
His relationship with his daughter, though…well, that was doomed from the start.
Dom made an effort to meet the little girl a few times, then eventually gave up, figuring it was better if he stayed out of her life for good.
He was right. No little girl should be spending time in gambling halls or staying home while he went out club-hopping. But I did believe he cared about her in his own way.
She shrugged. “Just a hunch. But what do I know? I barely knew the man.”
“You knew him enough to come and visit him,” I commented.
“Yes, because my mom made me,” she responded. “He kept calling, and one day, she felt bad and gave in.”
Her tone was casual, about it, but I sensed there was more to her feelings than she let on. Still, that part was shielded so well that it made me think I was maybe seeing things.
Another interesting thing was her relationship with her mom. What kind of woman would send her teenage daughter across the state to go and visit a man she barely knew?
I almost wanted to poke more to find out. “Your mom had any pet names for you?”
“No,” she answered simply, offering no elaboration and showing no emotion behind her words. As she turned, my other employee, Chelsea, suddenly arrived, flanked by two men.
“Oh.” Chelsea’s eyes widened, and her mouth snapped shut like it always did when she saw me. Chelsea was a mouse under the best of circumstances, and now, as her eyes darted throughout the whole room, I knew if I so much as sighed, she would jump a foot in the air.
Chelsea was inappropriate for this job, and I’d been meaning to fire her, but she was pretty good with sales, so I kept her on.
I glanced at the two men standing on either side of her and asked, “I thought today was your day off?”
“It was,” Paul said with a nod, then jabbed his chin at Chelsea. “Chelsea told us there might be some trouble, so we rushed here.”
Ah, I could see what happened. Chelsea left at the first sign of trouble under the guise of going for help, leaving Emily alone to handle the big bastard. Chelsea could have easily called the men from here, but the girl hated confrontation more than anything and was more likely to hide.
But I couldn’t really blame her. Not every woman had the sheer gumption Emily had.
I shifted my attention back to Emily, who was watching the group wryly as well. I knew she knew what Chelsea had done, but rather than take offense, she simply shook her head.
“Anyway,” she said as she picked up the necklace and analyzed it. “I think, with a little bit of polishing, we can sell this for at least a thousand. That way, we’re making a profit.” She shrugged. “It’s not a whole lot, but it’s something.”
I took the necklace from her hand, not necessarily because I wanted to inspect it, but more so because I wanted to see her reaction again. as my hand encircled her wrist to draw her hand closer before picking it from between her fingers, she stiffened, and her eyes flashed.
Her lips fell open, and even though she didn’t make a sound, I could tell the tiniest of gasps was trapped at the other side of her throat.
And I felt her pulse quicken in her wrists.
Desire. I knew that was what she felt for me, and had known it since the very first time we met. I felt the electricity sizzle between us, but I also knew she’d been trying to avoid this and pretend it wasn’t there.
I let her have her peace, but it didn’t stop the hunger gnawing in my belly, as inappropriate as I knew it was.
“Let go,” she said now, fixing her eyes into a glare, although her voice was huskier, cracking in the middle of the sentence.
The fire in her eyes only served to stoke the hunger inside me. “Or what? You going to kick me in the balls?”
She smiled sweetly. “If you want.”
Ah, so sassy. I was used to most people cowing before me, so this kind of attitude was kind of refreshing.
Unfortunately, the stand-off was interrupted by my phone ringing, reminding me that I had somewhere else to be.
