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Unknown:Meet me around the corner from the house.
My heart thumps. Jay?
I don’t know, but I’m going. I should probably text or call Diego, let him know what’s going on and where I’m heading. I don’t have a death wish. Letting Diego know is the right thing even though I know when it comes down to it, he’ll try to push me out of it. Like years ago, when he cut me out, left town, broke my heart—I can’t finish that thought. I can’t allow myself to continue to think of him.
“Hey, Nadia,” Riff says, regaining my attention with a touch. “I know it’s a lot to spring on you, but . . . we should work on this. We were great and could still be great. I get it, cold feet and all, and it’s a lot to marry me and my reputation, but that’s all it is, an old reputation.”
Football star. Golden boy. Great family. Good marriage material.
All the reasons I dragged my feet in the first place. I let him wear me down, convinced myself it was love at one point, but it’s not. He’s never going to be what I want, and settling isn’t what either of us deserves.
I’m too nice to be cold, but I try to let him down. “I’m not the right person for you.”
“Nadia, you don’t mean that.” He pulls me into his arms and slides his hand down to grab at my ass. Something I never liked, and he leans in. “We were good. Could be better.”
He lurches in, mouth open, and aims for mine.
I almost squeal as I try to pull free.
“Hands off my fuckin’ woman,” a familiar voice says behind me, cutting the moment dead.
ChapterFive
DIEGO
It takes all I have not to mess up the soft edges of the pretty boy’s face.
“Beat it,” the asshole says, “we’re in the middle of something.”
The thing is, Nadie was very much not wanting to be any part of that something, middle or otherwise.
I stride over and grab the dude with his hands on Nadia by the collar. The guy’s almost as tall as me and built like a quarterback. He swings at me, and I block it, twisting his arm behind his back, making him cry like a baby.
Leaning close, I give his arm an extra special twist I picked up as a De Luca enforcer, and I grin, enjoying the inflicting of that pain. “Wanna tell me why you think it’s fuckin’ okay to manhandle an unwilling woman? And then tell me why I shouldn’t make ground beef out of your face?”
“Diego, no.”
Nadia’s quiet plea freezes me.
Two nanoseconds. That’s all it fucking takes. Two nanoseconds are too long to put it together.
This isn’t some slobbering fool hitting on Nadie against her will, like this town grows creepers who lurk on every corner, no.
She knows him.
Fuck.
Now, I see it, I sense the history. It’s like real fresh. Like maybe not even history.
Disgusted with myself, I release him, shoving him harder than I should, and I stalk off, pulling my phone from my pocket.
“You keep calling me, Tizio,” I mutter as I’ve missed about eight calls so far, “and people are gonna start to talk.”
“Real funny, big guy. Got anything?”
I sigh. Apart from the case of blue balls last night that not even a good old-fashioned tug and pull fully relieved, I don’t fucking know. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
