Page 62 of Mob Princess

I slid my glass to the side. “Well, she’s no one you have to worry about. She’s a woman from my past, but nothing else. She’s staying in my past.”

“Then, why did your father bring her to the party?”

“Because I was supposed to have a lunch date this past Friday with her mother.”

Bonnie licked her lips, a worried frown furrowing her brow. “I didn’t know that.”

I shrugged. “Well, now, you do.”

“What did her mother want?”

“Probably to try and hook us up.”

She scoffed. “And you didn’t think that was prevalent information I needed to know?”

“Now you know what it feels like to be in the dark.”

She shot to her feet. “Excuse me, but I’m not going to be talked to or treated like that anymore. We’re supposed to be a team. And while you might look for any excuse to cast me off, you at least have to give me some credit here. I was sent to kill you, and something about your demeanor changed that for me. Being with you changed that for me. That has to count for something. And now you want to blindside me with the fact that your family’s trying to set you up to marry someone else when you’ve got a perfectly good woman standing here trying t—”

I let her rant until she cut herself off, but when she did? I stood. I placed my hands against the table and leaned forward until I smelled her wine-tainted breath waft beneath my nose.

She slowly sat back down.

I didn't. I gazed into her eyes even though she kept averting hers from mine. After moving around the table, I crouched down beside her, watching as she kept her eyes cast to her lap.

“Bonnie,” I said.

She licked her lips. “That was out of line. I—”

“Look at me, please.”

Her eyes fluttered my way. “I don’t hear you say that word often.”

“Because I don’t. That means when I use it, I’m serious.”

She nodded. “I know.”

My eyes danced along her face. “Yes, you have proven to me on various occasions that you can’t be trusted. Even though you had good intentions, you executed them wrong. You want a partnership, but you won’t talk to me.”

“You won’t talk to me, either.”

“We keep forgetting at the base of everything is your uncle. We lose sight of that when we get caught up in our emotions. That’s why I’m not allowing myself to get caught up like you are right now.”

She closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for them. Emotions are what remind us we’re human. But they’re also a catastrophic distraction in a situation like this. I want you safe, Bonnie. I want you alive. Even though you make it difficult, and even though you make my head sometimes hurt with your insane ways, I just want you safe. Understand?”

She brushed a tear away. “And I just want to prove to you that I can be the partner you want. The partner you need. But if we can’t keep our word to one another and we can’t talk to each other, all I have is sneaking around behind your back to prove my point, which only makes it worse no matter the outcome. If you keep closing me out, I can’t communicate. And that’s the hub of everything in any relationship.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re right. It is.”

“So, I’m communicating to you that I didn’t enjoy Alice at that party and how she interacted with you.”

“I promise you what happened between Alice and me is over.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I paused. “Why that question?”

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