Page 52 of Taken With Trouble

I lower my voice. “We both know you do.”

“Why would I believe you’ll tell me the truth?”

I scrub a hand over my face, pinching my eyes closed. “I’m tired of lying. I don’t have anyone who knows the real me, and it’s bloody lonely. So, as long as you can’t look up at me with your big brown eyes that both tempt and terrify me, maybe I’ll be able to tell you the secrets I’m so tired of holding alone.”

I open my eyes and clamp my lips together. Absolutely none of that was supposed to come out.

Her eyes have gone softer, and she blinks three times before swallowing. “One dance. That’s it. For your grandfather.”

“One dance.”

She hands the blindfold to me and turns. But as I work the tie around her head, my fingers tremble. With fear, maybe, that she’ll ask something I can’t answer. That she’ll use my secrets against me. That I’ll give away too much, or maybe not enough. Or maybe I don’t trust myself to be fully in control when it comes to her, because I’m not in control of anything right now. Certainly not my wandering eyes that drift down the back of her neck where a small tattoo hidesjust under the collar of her shirt. I can’t control my racing, desperate thoughts for her.

I finish the knot, but my fingers can’t seem to remove themselves from her hair. It’s so soft and long, nearly to her waist. I drag my hands down the length of it.

A shiver courses through her body as my fingertips skim her lower back. “You used my expensive shampoo, didn’t you?”

“Looked free to me.” She shudders.

If only she knew how everything I have can be free for her.

She turns abruptly. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

I take a deep breath and find the song I’m looking for. The voice of Keane begins serenading of secret places, and I grab her hands, putting one on my shoulder, keeping the other in mine. She immediately stiffens, her nails digging in.

“Ask me a question,” I whisper.

“Okay… um, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever stolen?” Her grip seems to loosen as her lips do, and I take advantage, pressing our bodies closer so we move as one.

“Starting with the easy ones, I see.” I watch her blindfold covered face. She can’t tell me to stop looking at her, so I don’t. I let my eyes devour everything that is Serena Cruz, her full lips, the Cupid’s bow in her upper lip, the small mole to the right corner of them. “Well,” I start, “the most lucrative venture I suppose would have been when I stole a hospital.”

“Excuse me?” She freezes, but I pull her closer, keeping us in motion.

“I mean, I didn’t pick it up and steal the building. I just stole it from the owner.”

“I…” She shakes her head. “Explain.”

I smile. “The CEO was a piece of work. He was going to kick out all the patients on hospice because he knew he wouldn’t get that money back. He regularly took people off lifesaving machines who didn’t have friends or family around, and refused to let anyone go late on payments. He sent a poor mother to jail because she couldn’t pay for her child’s cancer treatments.”

“What?” Cruz gasps, and when she does, her body relaxes into mine even more. “How was he not caught?”

“Friends in high places.”

“But…howdid you steal the hospital?”

I flex my hand on the small of her back, pressing my palm into the delicate dip there. “It was rather fun, I must admit. He was in some personal financial trouble, and I came in as a rich investor—the answer to all his problems. One night, while he was sloppy drunk, he gave me every secret and password I needed. I stole the hospital right out from under him and sent him to prison in one fell swoop.”

“What did you do with the hospital?”

“I still have it. I oversee it from afar, allowing a competent hospital administrator to manage the day-to-day operations, and I add to the cancer treatment funds monthly.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t get it. Why did you do that? And how did no one find out?”

“I did it because I wanted to. Because I could. Because no one else was going to.” I realize my grip on her has tightened, and I intentionally soften my hold. “And you never found out because I’m good at what I do. Anyone who poses a problem can be bribed. I have lots of aliases, as you know.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Yeah, but I just figured you… I don’t know… steal because you’re selfish.”

This makes me curious. “Whatdoyou know about me?”

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