Page 7 of Oops Baby for the Mafia Boss
She plucks her earbuds out hurriedly. The way I feel about her isn’t rational. It’s like something snapped into place when we met, her a magnet and me base metal.
“Mr Lunacharski,” she says in that sweet voice of hers. “Can I help?”
I walk in with all the careless ease that I can fake. My heart slams between my ribs and my spine.
Her eyes go wide as I put one hand on her desk and pick up her phone with the other. The audio app is on the lock screen, and I tap the play button.
The audiobook we were listening to yesterday rings out.
After a few sentences, I frown. It’s further on than the part it stopped on when her mother rang and interrupted.
Emily notices my change of expression. “I’m sorry. I can rewind it. I listened on the way to work.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to spoil her commute. That won’t make her like me enough to overlook my less-than-desirable traits.
“I can tell you what happened if you prefer?” she says over the audiobook. “So you’re caught up?”
I smack the pause button, becauseyes. Her talking to me is ideal.
She looks up at me with a pleased half-smile, and I ease back, propping my hip against her desk.
“They were looking on a mountain ridge for the power enhancers, and disturbed an enormous black dragon. It was about to torch them all, but Rovaj speaks dragon language, and it only attacked Athdar. Solene jumped in front of Athdar to defend him, and the dragon stopped and then flew off.”
My lips quirk up. I’ve been known occasionally to use fire against men who have something that I want. Rovaj seems reasonable to me.
“He’s a prick,” she mutters. “Rovaj, that is.”
I shrug.
“You like him?” she says with disbelief. “But he’s the villain!”
My expression must give me away, because she snorts a little laugh, covering her mouth with her hand. Although Rovaj’s behaviour in book one is quite murdery, he saves Solene several times in books two and three.
I relate to him.
“Right. On brand,” she adds under her breath. “Ready to continue?”
I nod, but as the tinny sound of her phone’s speakers fills the room, I can’t help thinking. Would she be more likely to fall for me if I weren’t the villain?
I’m not sure how to be anything but an anti-hero, but for her, I would try.
She sneaks covert peeks at me from under her lashes as we both listen, her continuing her work, which I guess is part of the modernising project I started when I took over Mortlake.
Pulling up the tiny chair I used yesterday, I lie back and watch her. I read all of this last night, of course, so it’s familiar, and just an excuse to be near Emily.
I haven’t felt so peaceful in years. You’d think my top-floor office in this old warehouse building overlooking the River Thames would be soothing, but apparently if it’s with Emily, my dark soul wants the basement, surrounded by dusty archives.
We listen for almost an hour, until her phone cuts the audiobook off mid-sentence again. She silences the tone, and gives me a guilty look. “It’s my mother…”
I’m already out of my chair, returning it to its place, waving my hand to indicate she should take the call. The last thing I want to do is cause her problems.
“Will you be here tomorrow?” she calls, the phone still ringing in her hand, and I stop in the doorway.
I nod. This is so easy. Like she understands me. Like she wants this too.
“I’ll leave it at this place and not listen?—”
I make a disapproving noise, shaking my head.
