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I don’t even know how long I’ve been hunched over my desk—alongtime if the soreness in my back is any indicator.
“This is getting me nowhere,” I groan to myself and drop the pen and its lid from my hand at the same time. I pinch the bridge of my nose and massage the inner corners of my eyes to will myself back to a more concentrated state of mind. It’s proving difficult to do. I almost regret sending my secretary home for the evening, however long ago it was… Somebody to fetch me more coffee would bereallynice right about now.
I untuck my lavender blouse from my pencil skirt and inhale deeply. I’m getting a cramp in my legs from sitting so strangely. If the other partners in my firm didn’talsokeep such random hours, I might be tempted to ditch the skirt entirely just so that I can move freely while I work.
It’s not like they can see into my office… I could get away with it. Probably.
Thankfully my train of thought is disrupted by a knocking on my door that nearly scares me right out of my skin.
“Knock, knock!” A familiar voice says in an overly chipper tone. A bright, warm light mixes into the dim lighting of my office as my best friend eases open the door to my office without waiting for me to invite her inside. “Are you alive in here?”
The scent of fresh coffee and cinnamon wafts in with her entrance, swirling about the room until the bright, happy notes of her perfume mix with the breakfast that she’s brought me. Just like that, I feel refreshed.
“It looks like a vampire den in here, you know?” Amanda teases with good-natured humor as she kicks the door shut behind her. “Earth to Camila?”
I realize that I’ve been staring covetously at the cardboard coffee holder in her hand with something akin to lust in my eyes. I snap out of it as she waves her hand in front of my face and a smile follows. “Sorry, I forget that you’re an angel.” I extend my hands out toward her greedily. “What have I done to deserve such wonderful gifts?” I pause, “What are you even doing awake at this hour?”
Amanda grins, “It’s four in the morning, babe. It’s the normal time that all of us legal-minded types have to be awake if we want to get anywhere.” Now she pauses and sighs. Her eyes rakedown my frame, the untucked shirt, the way my hair is slowly falling from the updo I put it in yesterday, and she shakes her head. “You’ve been here all night again, haven’t you?”
I smile bashfully and flutter my lashes at her. “Would you believe me if I said that I was justthatdedicated to my work?” I cup the latte she brought me in both of my hands, absorbing every bit of comforting warmth from it that I can. The steam washes over my face as she sets the rest of her items on my already crowded desk. She steps out of her black patent pumps and starts to rummage inside her large designer purse for her small makeup bag.
“I would believe you if you said that you were working this late so that your bear of a father didn’t beat your ass.ThatI would believe.”
I wave off her comment. “What? Him? Never.” I’m teasing, but we both know damn well that my father would do a lot more than that if I couldn’t solve this problem for him. “I’m more worried about my eyes rebelling and walking out of my head from the strain that I’ve been putting on them.” I take a small scalding sip of the latte and gesture to all the documents covering my space. “I have been over them dozens of times, and I cannot find a single thing that’s going to keep Raul off the chopping block this time.”
Amanda looks uncomfortable, she always does whenever the subject of my father’s empire comes up. I can’t even blame her—it’s not for the faint-hearted. I just don’t have the luxury of ignoring any of it because it would be easier. Given her history with my family, it’s probably cruel that I mention it to her at all.Technically, it’s a conflict of interest to discussanythingwith her. I bite down on my bottom lip, feeling guilty even as she walks around the desk to refresh my makeup. I don’t deserve her, I really don’t.
“Sorry,” I mutter lamely.
“For what?” she forces a smile, but I know she’s bothered. “It’s not your fault that you’re terrible at makeup. This is the real reason that you keep me around, don’t even try to deny it.” She loosens the clips from my updo, letting thick brown waves of my chestnut hair tumble around my shoulders. “You look so much better with your hair down, babe. I don’t know why you keep fighting me on it.”
I swat her hands away and clip it right back up. “Because it gets into my face if I have it down… And I have far more important things to worry about, than whether or not the pencil pushers in my office find me attractive.”
“You’re looking at it all the wrong way, babe. Your looks are a thing of power! When you realize the potential in that, you will be unstoppable. Having an ass like yours, withthoselegs and your exotic features?” She shook her head and swept a brush over my cheekbones. “It wouldn’t matter if you knew this case inside and out.” Her smile softens as she uses her ring finger to blend out the color. “It was part of what made your brother so irresistible to everybody too, you know. At least heownedthe perfect face that the two of you shared.”
I pull her hands away from my face and hold them tightly. “True… But you were the one that he chose.”
Emotion swells in her throat, wrapping her voice in sadness. “Yeah well,” she starts. I can tell that she’s about to cry again. Pain and heartbreak like the ones we share don’t ever fade, not really. While we stand on opposite ends of the spectrum, the love that we share for my late twin is equally fierce. I brush my thumbs over the backs of her hands and she sniffles, looking up to dispel the tears.
“Look at me, blubbering again. I didn’t come here for this. I came here to ply you with sugary goodness and coffee, so you’re forced to listen to me bitch and complain about my new job.”
“I would do that anyway,” I say as I greedily wrap my fingers around the pastry bag and pull it toward myself, rifling through the contents. “But this certainly doesn’t hurt.” I pull out a chocolate croissant, but I don’t give the bag back either.
“My boss is a twat. Worse than your father, worse than anybody that I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting. If he hovers over me while I’m working one more time, I’m going to get sued. I’m going to hit him, and then I’m going to get sued and you will have to promise to defend me in court.”
“Assuming that I finish with the litigation of this trial, you have a deal,” I laugh.
“See, if your brother were still alive, he would do it for me. Pull that sexy, scary thing that he always did and make the bastarddisappear off the face of the earth—solving my problem and probably getting me a nice little promotion in the meantime. There would literally be no downside. “
“That’s rich coming from a girl who doesn’t want to help me out with the same business you want to benefit from.” My shoulders sag.
I want to ask her to come back for the millionth time. I want to tell her that she needs to be here, fighting these cases beside me. Between the two of us, my father and all of his men were practically untouchable—but I need her. I get why she left. I really do. She couldn’t be here, looking at me every day. I know seeing me hurts her since Alessandro died because we looked almost identical. She couldn’t work for my father the way that she had worked for Alessandro. It was for the best anyway; my father wouldn’t tolerate her backtalk the way that Alessandro did.
All the more reason to get this gun trading deal swept as far under the proverbial rug as I can—and fast. The trial is only days away, and if I can’t find the loophole that I’ve already promised to find, my father will turn all his boundless wrath in my direction.
Yet another thing that had changed since Alessandro’s murder—there is nobody to stand between myself and my father.
Where I have always been the meek one, the quiet one who would rather spend her time in her room minding her own business or reading, Alessandro was a force to be reckonedwith. He was the sun and the stars. He was theentire solar system, and everybody was in his gravitational pull. There was nothing that he couldn’t do.Nothing. Like Amanda, I had always seen my twin as this untouchable being, impervious to damage. He was larger than everything, and he knew how to handle everything.
