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“What about dinner and wine, then a stroll through the park?” I ask. “It will be a little chilly, but we can swing home and grab our jackets.”
“Anything you want, Gem,” he murmurs.
I peer up at him, a flirty smirk pulling at my lips as I open the drawer we’re actually here for. “Don’t make promises—”
“I wouldn’t dream of not keeping my promise to you,” he croons.
“We’ll see,” I lightly sing.
He chuckles. “What will we see about? Are you on the puppy kick again?”
I scoff as I take the finance documents out of the drawer, making them visible for the cameras to see. “It’s not a kick. I want a dog, Lory. Maybe even three of them.”
“I don’t know.” He rolls his eyes when he catches up to my train of thought. “That’s a lot of responsibility, and you stay so busy as it is.”
He shifts slightly, and I take the chance to slide the members’ files into the finance folder. Juan will know we took them, but what can he say?
He wasn’t supposed to know about them.
As we leave the office, I pass Lory the folder and take his other hand. His fingers warm my skin, causing me to sigh to myself. In a perfect world, we could leave here to join the guys for dinner. And then we could go home, watch a movie, get into all kinds of debauchery…
I know I’m greedy.
I want too much.
But I also know what I deserve, what I’ve earned, what I’ve worked my ass off to keep.
I’m going to convince Lory that my arrangement with the guys is true and worthwhile…
And it could be permanent.
After the war.
I won’t risk their lives any more than I do by keeping up the flings, but I also struggle with the idea of walking away from them. The thought makes my chest clench, as if a vise squeezes my lungs, until I’m gasping for even the smallest breath.
Either way, they’re in danger because of me.
At least this way, I’m always close.
That’s what I tell myself, but really…
I’m just too selfish to let go of what I already have.
As we leave the Maldonado compound, heading toward the courtyard, Lory plucks my keys from my hand and ushers me around to the passenger side. Of my car. When I furrow my brow in confusion, he shrugs at me.
“I’ll drive.”
“You drove your car here, didn’t you?”
He nods, whispering so low I can barely hear him, “Javier picked it up a few minutes ago. We’re pretty confident someone is tracking us, so he’s taking it on a road trip upstate to visit his aunt.”
I slide into the passenger seat and pick at my lower lip as I think through his statement. Lory pulls out of the compound onto the winding road along the shore, letting me brew in silence.
I don’t like the implications of this news. If they’re tracking us, then they’re watching us. The next step is listening in, and that’s not a surprise with the cartel. It still pisses me off, even though we’re already pulling the same underhanded tricks.
But can we make it work for us?
“Why is Javier taking your car to go see his aunt?” I ask. “Is his radiator still busted?”
