Page 2 of With this Ring

Without asking her anything about herself or making polite conversation, he extolled the virtues of his latest purchase, a car reported to cruise along at over two hundred miles an hour.

“Isn’t the top speed in this country eighty or eighty-five?”

“My car can be shipped to other places in the world. Or tested on racetracks.”

Schooled by the trust fund baby. “I see.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, she forced a smile as he launched into his next monologue.

“What do you say…?”

Realizing she’d completely tuned him out, she blinked to clear her head. “Sorry?”

Impatiently, he expelled a breath. “I said we should head somewhere quieter.”

Before she could respond, the tiny hairs on her nape stood up, warning of danger.

Someone was watching her.

Surreptitiously, she looked around, scanning the crowd, but she noticed nothing amiss. And yet, the feeling persisted. It waslike an itch between her shoulder blades, a prickle of awareness she couldn’t shake.

“Are you paying attention to me?” he whined, pulling her closer and sliding a hand lower on her spine.

She stiffened and eased back a little, not quite ready to bring her heel down on his instep but getting closer.

From nowhere, a hulking presence appeared and forcefully tapped Tristan’s shoulder.

“Get your fucking hands off her.”

Both she and Tristan froze.

Sasha would know his voice anywhere. The deep, rich baritone danced through her dreams, echoed through her fantasies.

Gregorio.

God save her.

No.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Tristan demanded.

Protector. Lethal warrior. Her fiercest defender. And biggest nemesis.

The man she measured everyone against.

Rather than answering, Gregorio leaned toward Tristan, getting in his face. When he spoke, his tone was controlled and steely, filled with threat. “Do you need me to repeat myself, pretty boy?”

Tristan’s eyes widened, but ego—and maybe whiskey—propelled him toward recklessness. “Look, dude, I’ll have you know—”

“Tristan,” she urged, finally able to shake off her paralysis in order to act. “Don’t.”

He opened his mouth again, but then he looked at Gregorio, who stood several inches taller and was much broader.

His massive biceps strained against the sleeves of his suitcoat.

No polite, civilized veneer could possibly hide the power coiled in his frame, the barely restrained violence.

A diamond earring winked from one ear.

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