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He’s busy today, filming a commercial for a foundation that raises money for children’s cancer research. I swear, the guy is practically a saint.
He’s also the sexiest man in the city. I might be legitimately obsessed with him.
Can’t help that. Don’t want to.
Miss you too.
Conner’s next message promises that he’ll be here later tonight after filming wraps up.
I can’t wait.
That boy has no real clue how he makes my heart flutter. Only him. No one else, not ever.
I still can’t get over the fuss he made over my birthday. They all did. Dani baked me a freaking cake for crying out loud. After I treated her like nuclear waste for years the girl goes and bakes me a cake. The hand of friendship she’s extended to me is one I’ve neither earned or deserve and I’m grateful.
Birthdays have never been my favorite but they’ve felt especially grim ever since Lita’s coma. Conner filled his house with flowers and family anyway, insistent on celebrating. Every moment I’m with him I can feel myself softening.
And I don’t hate the change.
I don’t hate it at all.
“That was Conner texting, wasn’t it?” Sophie uses her phone camera as a mirror and applies glossy color to her lips. “I can tell.” She smacks her lips together. “You’re so lucky. But I guess you don’t really need luck. You’re drop dead supermodel gorgeous. You’d have to be to catch a guy like Conner Wiseman.”
There’s a sharp edge of jealousy in her comment. I don’t take it personally. She’s stuck going home to Jared every night. That is, when Jared bothers to return to the heavily guarded Essex Street compound where they live.
I hear the gossip about my cousins from Vito. My father’s longtime bodyguard has been prowling around often, just keeping watch. He’s refused to say if this is my father’s request or his own initiative but I don’t mind having an extra pair of eyes and a reliable gun in the area, especially with my cousins running amok.
According to Vito, Uncle Desmond snorts so much powder up his nose these days he hardly knows which end is up. His demented sons are in control, as I knew they would be. Talon hasn’t been real stealth about muscling in on my father’s interests and it’s going to be entertaining to see him smacked down for it, as he will be. Jared, meanwhile, divides his time between expanding his illegal casinos and getting his dick sucked by porn stars, leaving Sophie to fend for herself.
Whatever. I’m content to stay out of their shit as long as they stay out of mine. Let my father deal with them when the time comes.
Sophie is now curling her eyelashes. “Jared came home early last night and had a fit. He always expects me to just sit at home in that ugly apartment that isn’t even a penthouse. I explained that I was helping you manage the club but he never listens. When I said I could leave him and go back to Vegas anytime I want, he laughed and said my father would just ship me right back whether I liked it or not. It’s probably true. No one wants me around.”
There’s a lot to unpack in that speech.
She sniffs and withdraws a crumpled tissue from her purse to blow her nose.
Sophie couldn’t help ‘manage the club’ on her best day. It’s enough of a chore to keep her from chasing customers away or choking on her own vomit after she gets blackout drunk. As for last night, Fiona said Sophie was tipsy when she showed up and then she kept stealing drink trays.
Still, as I watch Sophie breathing snot into a tissue and fretting over her shitty marriage, I’d have to be heartless not to feel some sympathy. “It’s not true that no one wants you around, Soph. We’re family now. You know you can always come here.”
She slumps on the sofa cushion. “I think you’re just saying that.”
Not entirely false. But even when she irritates the hell out of me I won’t tell her to get lost. “Can I ask you something?”
She bobs her head.
“Has Jared ever hurt you?”
Sophie chews her acrylic thumbnail and thinks. “He says I ought to get another nose job because the first one looks like shit. That hurt my feelings. And last night he broke my favorite string of pearls. Snapped it right off my neck. But I guess it didn’t really hurt.”
I don’t especially like the sound of that. “You need to tell me right away if he ever hurts you.”
She smiles. “You hate him, don’t you?”
My cousins are not my favorite people. I wouldn’t trust either of them to feed a cat. But for now I have to bide my time and live by the family code of honor. “We have our differences. That’s all.”
Her smile drops. “He hatesyou, Haven. He and Talon both. I think they might hate you even more than they hate your father.”
