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‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly, looking at the wall. ‘It was bound to happen one day.’
‘He have a tendency to fuck things up?’ Dornan asked, his interest suddenly aroused. He didn’t give a shit about her dad, but he wanted to learn more about her. About her life. What did she dream about at night? Or were her nights filled with nightmares, like his were?
He had never cared before. He loved his children, would lay down his life for them. He loved his first wife in some way, and his second. He had a fierce love for his own mother. But he had never been obsessed with what made them tick, what drove them in life, the things that haunted them. Everybody else he had ever known had been taken at face value.
So to feel this obsession for the thoughts of the girl in front of him? It terrified him. And Dornan Ross did not enjoy being scared. Especially not of dirty, insignificant things like feelings. Feelings and emotions made a man weak. Better not to feel them at all.
She let out the breath she’d been holding and glanced at him. The brave mask she wore slipped a little, and he saw the exhausted girl underneath all the sarcasm and witty retorts.
‘My father is a complicated man,’ she said quietly.
When she didn’t elaborate, Dornan nodded. ‘Seems we have that in common. Complicated old men. They all have their own . . . anomalies.’
Mariana huffed. ‘Anomalies.’
Dornan rubbed his stubbled jaw as he watched her. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘when you first got here, something about you struck me as odd.’
Her lip curled up minutely. ‘Just the one thing?’
He matched her small smile with one of his own. ‘You were so . . . accepting of what was happening. Almost like . . . you were expecting it.’
He saw her stiffen slightly and sit up straighter on the bed. She seemed to be contemplating whether to share more with him. Dornan studied her, not making a sound. People always wanted to fill silence, and if you waited long enough, they’d rush forth to do it in your absence.
‘It should have happened years ago,’ she said quietly, massaging her wrists where the cuffs dug in. ‘I’ve been pretty good at holding off the debt collectors.’
Dornan’s curiosity was piqued. ‘With your pretty face?’ he guessed.
Jesus Christ. He might as well give her the knife back and let her carve out his heart.
‘With creative accounting,’ she said. ‘Take some from here, tack it onto there, and when that stops working, the cheque’s always in the mail.’ Her eyes bored into him. ‘Of course, it’s much more complex than that.’
Dornan sat back and studied her with newfound appreciation. Beautiful and clever. A rare — and dangerous — combination in the cartel.
‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Very interesting.’
She didn’t look interested; she looked positively despondent.
‘What’s going to happen to me?’ she asked him again, and that steely look in her eyes was clouded over with worry. Just for a second, and then he could almost see the way she pushed her panic down and composed herself again. The ice queen. He saw right through her act, good as it was. She must have practised that indifferent stare for years, it was so automatic. He wondered what had happened to her that she needed to hide her feelings away so well.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘Drug mule, maybe. Your English is good enough. But you’d be a flight risk with that pesky family of yours.’
She opened her mouth to argue, but he put up a palm to stop her. She closed her mouth, and again, that surprised him.
She really wanted to know what came next. And he didn’t have the heart to tell her.
‘You’ve got a pretty face, Ana. I’m sorry that you do. I wish you didn’t.’
Her eyes grew wider.
‘If it were up to me? I’d put you to work in one of our finest gentlemen’s clubs.’
Only, I wouldn’t. I’d keep you all for myself. But of course, he couldn’t tell her that.
She huffed. ‘A whorehouse.’
He nodded. ‘Yup.’
Her shoulders sagged. ‘When?’
