Page 35 of Heartless Sinner

Marla blinked slowly, like she was tired but didn’t want to admit it. “I’m loyal to you,” she whispered. “I’m not in this for myself.”

I stroked her hair back out of her face. “I want to believe you.”

I really did.

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Chapter Sixteen

Marla

* * *

I want to believe you.

I supposed that was as good as I could get after one night. I was going to have to do more than just obey his orders once to show Vince that I wasn’t orchestrating this entire thing to claw my way up the mafia social ladder.

As if.

Whether it had to do with the Russo brothers or not, what my mother had said about Dmitri worried me. My brother was a bit reckless, it was true, but I had assumed from the beginning that this was a family trying to move in on our turf. That this was political.

What if my mother was right, and it was personal?

If that was true, perhaps I could do more investigating on my end than I’d thought. Women didn’t often talk to men, especially men who looked like trouble. But if I went in there, playing a grieving sister…

My plans were derailed when I found Jack waiting for me in the kitchen. “Mr. Russo has some errands he’d like you to do for him,” he said casually.

Vince had been gone by the time I woke up in the morning, so I couldn’t be sure if the arms I’d felt holding me all night were real or just the product of a fanciful imagination. Vince wasn’t sure he could trust me—why would he hold me all night?

“Oh? I hadn’t realized my wifely duties were to start so soon.”

My new bodyguard didn’t react to my sarcasm. “There’s going to be a small society dinner tonight that Mr. Russo has long been planning to attend in lieu of his father. He has requested you be his plus one tonight.”

Ah. So that was it. Vince wasn’t wasting any time making it known that we were engaged. “Let me guess. He wants me to find something suitable to wear.”

Jack handed me an envelope with my name on it. Inside was a sleek black credit card in Vince’s name, along with a list of possible stores and a note.

Just suggestions. Go anywhere you like. Sky’s the limit.

Well, when he put it like that…

I was annoyed to have my plans put on hold, but I had to admit, I’d always been a girl with expensive tastes. When given a credit card and told to go wild, my better angels were drowned out by the hungry devil on my shoulder. Besides, like it or not this was part of my deal with him. I had to play the part, be the wife and partner that he needed.

“All right then.” I looked up at Jack. “Let’s head for the shops.”

Even though I’d been able to indulge my expensive tastes now and again growing up, I had never been just handed an unlimited credit card and told to get whatever I wanted. I decided to stop by the shops on the list that Vince gave me first, just out of curiosity.

Turned out, the moment I walked in, Jack found a salesgirl and told her I was here “under Mr. Russo’s tab.”

“Oh my God, of course.” The girl beamed at me. “Absolutely. Right this way, ma’am.”

My eyebrows just about shot up into my hairline.

“I wasn’t aware Vincent was a… regular customer of yours.”

“Oh, he used to buy things for his mother all the time when she was alive, bless him, and he buys Christmas gifts for the wives of all his family friends. Such a gentleman, and such excellent taste.”

Such a strategic planner, too. Buying gifts like that kept people in your favor, kept them loyal, and wives tended to have the ears of their husbands. Even if a man wouldn’t listen to his men, he’d usually listen to his wife (even if he pretended he didn’t). Generous and crafty.

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