Page 23 of Hard Lessons

“That’s going to freak her the fuck out, Luca.”

“My intention exactly.” He pushed down the fury that she was leaving the country the week before his release. A whole damn ocean away. She’d lived in the fine apartment, spent his money, had a wild time, and now she was bailing out just before he got out.

Or at least she thought she was getting out of the line of fire.

Just another reason she’d be getting an ass so red she wouldn’t be sitting down for a month.

Chapter Four

Serena zipped up hernew Louis Vuitton suitcase. Her mind was swimming with excitement. She was on her way to America. A new life—again.

Perhaps she’d pick up the accent, a twang. She hoped so. The land of opportunity was where she wanted to be. She’d shop in New York, surf in California, perhaps take a trip to Disney and scare herself silly on the rollercoasters. There were some great spas there too, in the desert, was it Nevada or Utah? She couldn’t remember, but she’d seen the pictures in a magazine.

She reached for her cell. It was time to go.

America bound.

As she hit dial on the local London cab company she used, she pushed down a sharp pain that seemed to spear the very center of her soul.

Was it regret, remorse, or just the wish that things had turned out differently?

She wasn’t sure, but now wasn’t the time to analyze it. She had to get going, get out of London before either Giovanni or Luca came knocking. She’d probably stand more of a chance with Giovanni. And that was saying something.

Luca was going to be pissed at her when he got out next week. She hadn’t visited him once. To start with, it was because she was still angry at him for accusing her of being turned on by David Watson and flirting with him. And then as the time had stretched on she began to regret her hasty decision to say she was an escort. She’d done that because she was mad at him. She’d known it would piss him off for her to be labeled that way. As the months passed she wasn’t sure how to heal the rift between them. Not through bars.

She also didn’t know how to explain the fact she’d been unable to resist a spending spree. No one had ever mentioned the one hundred and ninety thousand pounds that she’d stuffed into the food containers that day. The police had no choice but to believe it had been discarded on their dash to the apartment with sirens chasing them. When the case had been closed in court, the money had been given up as a lost cause. She didn’t feel badly for David Watson; he’d earned it through illegal means anyway. It was hardly earned from an honest day’s work.

Giovanni, she guessed, thought the same thing as the police, the money was gone.

So she’d started spending as Giovanni was garnering favors by letting her live rent and bill free—she was Luca’s woman after all, and the sister of Diego Ricci.

And she wasn’t about to complain.

But she was skipping town before the shit hit the fan.

“Be with you in fifteen minutes,” the lady from the taxi company said.

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