Page 32 of Cherished By the Sinners
“Anything you want,” Mason said.
She hunched her shoulders a fraction.
Magnus kicked his brother under the table.“Dinner out, like right now,” he said.“Going to a movie or a theatre production.Helping you study for an exam.”
“We could take you on vacation to Europe,” Mason added, effortlessly continuing the specific examples he’d started.“Like Yvgeny is doing with Samanatha right now.”
Her head came up at that.“You’d take me traveling?”
“The world is a beautiful, fascinating place,” Magnus told her.“We would love to see it through your eyes.”
“You’ve traveled a lot?”
“Yes, we’re in the hospitality business,” Mason answered.“Which means we need to see what hotels are doing in other places, what kinds of things people want to see and experience when they take a trip.”
“We haven’t gone on a trip like that for a while,” Magnus said.“Perhaps we should talk to Anna about it.”
Mason nodded.
Magnus watched Darlene’s face as she thought about it, fascinated by the rapid change in micro-expressions on her face.Finally, she gave them a shy smile.
Triumph bubbled through his blood like champagne and a wide, uncharacteristically goofy smile spread across his face.
Mason, he saw, wore the exact same expression.
If any of their family members saw them right now, they would think he and his brother were drunk.
“Okay, I think...”Darlene said.“I’d like to try a relationship with you both, but I don’t want to jump into bed yet.”She winced.“So, if you’d rather not wait, I’ll stay out of your way.”
Magnus was about to tell her they had all the time in the world to wait, but the table of noisy ladies got much louder.So loud he turned to look and ask them to keep it down.
They were getting up and grabbing their things in preparation to leave when one of them backed into another and they both fell to the floor.
A man sitting with his back to their booth got up to help one of the women up.
Darlene sucked in a breath and froze.All the color disappeared from her face, like someone had pulled the plug on all the blood in her body.
The man laughed as he helped the lady stand, then said something to her in a flirtatious tone.
The woman wobbled on her feet, clearly drunk and told him to go fuck himself at a volume that meant everyone in the restaurant heard her.
“Who is he?”Magnus asked Darlene.
“He...”She paused and swallowed hard before she spoke.“He’s a vice cop.He’s arrested me a few times.”She paused for a moment, then whispered, “He’s not a nice person.”
“What’s he doing in our hotel?”Mason asked absently, turning in his seat to observe the man as he shooed the drunk women away.
“That’s an excellent question,” Magnus replied.“If he’s here just to have a good meal, that’s one thing, but—”
“If he’s here in an official capacity, that’s something else,” Mason finished the sentence.
The cop turned and looked right at Darlene.He gave her a slimy grin then made a show of giving her his back as he sat down in his seat.
“He doesn’t look very official,” she whispered.
Mason grunted.“He looks like he wants to start shit.”
“What about the men with him, do you recognize them?”Magnus asked.
