Page 10 of Daddy's Little Spy

“It’s sort of a family thing. My dad was a woodworker and he built a lot of shelves in his day.” Finally, something she didn’t have to make up a lie for. Her dad had been a master craftsman before his heart attack a few years back. Now, he just tinkered in the garage, making small pieces here and there for friends and family.

“Interesting. And you enjoy it? Your work?”

“I do. It’s challenging but rewarding.”

“Selling closets is rewarding?”

Relaxing into her role, she shot him a wide grin and took a sip of her coffee. “A man’s home is his castle, right? And a castle deserves the best of everything, even if it is just a closet. Closets provide order where there wasn’t any. Closets keep the chaos at bay.”

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a closet.”

So much pressure. But wasn’t that why she’d chosen to be a cop in the first place? Law and order, crime and punishment. She believed in those rules, in the black and white of justice. There was no room for shades of gray in her world, even when the gray came packaged in a body built for sin dressed in bespoke suits. “I suppose.”

“Closets, like anything else, can only handle so much before they crumble. They need someone to care for them, to make sure that pressure isn’t more than they can bear.”

“Yes… I guess that’s true.” They weren’t talking about closets anymore, that much she was sure of. But she wasn’t quite sure exactly what he was talking about.

She puzzled on it in silence the rest of the way to her “appointment”. At the address she’d given him, he opened the door to help her out of the car, but instead of releasing her hand as soon as she was on her feet, he used her momentum to pull her into him.

“I’d like to see you tonight.”

“Well, someone is going to need to give me a ride home,” she joked, hoping the humor would distract the both of them from the way her heart was slamming up against her ribcage.

A slow, devastatingly sexy smile curved his lips upward just a fraction. “It’s settled, then. I’ll pick you up and we’ll have dinner together.”

“I, ah, don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

Her mind scrambled for some excuse that wouldn’t make him suspicious. “I have no idea what time I’ll be finished.”

“That’s all right. There’s a little Italian place around the corner, Signora’s. Best spaghetti carbonara this side of the Atlantic. One of my cousins owns it.”

Which meant it was most likely a front for something far more sinister than spaghetti. Her instinct to do whatever it took to close the case warred with her instinct to stay as far away as possible from Benito Rinaldi. In the end, the job won, as usual. “All right.”

“Text me when you leave work and I’ll meet you there.”

“I don’t have your number.”

“Amara gave me yours. I’ll check in with you this afternoon.”

Something not at all unpleasant fluttered in her chest. “Sure. Um, that sounds nice.”

“Until this evening, then.” Lifting her hand to his lips, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “One more thing, before you go.”

“Yes?”

Again, he tapped the lid of her travel mug. “That’s your last cup of coffee for the day.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Okay, sure.”

“I’m serious, Diana. All that caffeine isn’t healthy.”

In spite of herself, of her supposed morals, her heart did a slow roll in her chest at the sound of her name on his lips. She was playing a dangerous game, but she needed to get as deep inside the Rinaldi family as possible. And what better in than Emilio’s right-hand man?

“I’m an adult, Benito. I can drink as much coffee as I want.”

“You can,” he conceded with surprising equanimity. “But there will be consequences.”

---