Smirking, he steps back and turns, standing at an angle.
He squats to the floor, his hands outstretched when his legs snap back behind him. He lowers and does a beautiful pushup, the bulging forearms throbbing along with his thigh muscles. His legs bend, and in one swift impossible move, he jumps up.
“Again,” I mutter.
Darragh stares at me, and it’s the kind of look that says so much. That look when you know someone is…dear God…your soul mate.
But that’s impossible.
I have an excuse for being so wired and unhinged. But why is Darragh looking at me like he wants to devour me?
God, I need a drink, but tea will have to do.
“Never mind.” I stand up and grip the railing again. “Do you mind if I make myself some tea?”
“Not at all. I have several kinds.” He grabs a towel and wipes the glistening, sexy sweat from the back of his neck. “I’m a tea junkie.”
He approaches the stairs, and I back myself into the wall so he can pass me.
My throat goes tight, thinking he’s going to walk around shirtless like that in those skimpy shorts.
I catch a look at myself in the mirror on the far wall. I’m a freaking whale. With an arrest record a mile long.
“My case!” I hadn’t even thought about that.
“I’m calling a lawyer I know in L.A. He’ll get both your charges dropped.”
“You can do that?”
Darragh stops climbing the stairs and looks over his shoulder. “Of course, I can do that.”
“How?”
“It’s called money.”
“You’re going to bribe the Las Vegas D.A.?” I wonder if he’s on the take, considering how much money and power swims in that town.
“Not me. The lawyer. The right lawyer always has backdoor connections.”
I scoff. The four-leaf clover doesn’t grow too far from the meadow.
Darragh grew up with the Irish King for a dad. It’s in his blood to skirt the law. Pay for what he wants. Hurt people to get what money can’t buy.
I glance at Darragh’s hands and the smooth, unscarred, un-tatted, veiny fingers I remember holding his daughter relax me.
If he gets my charges dropped, that solves a huge problem of mine.
I have to trust him. I’m having a baby in a few weeks, and I can’t go to jail.
I follow him toward the kitchen where the soft ripple of Puget Sound’s current lapping against the rocks at the shoreline takes my breath away.
“God, what a view…”
Darragh crosses in front of the dozen narrow windows that sit in a bowed wall and opens a pantry.
“It cost over a mil.”
You’re a much better view. Priceless.