Page 46 of Sinful Promise
“Oh…” Amused, he lifts a hand and wags a finger in her direction. “But she is, Delicious. She’s very interested.”
“In putting arsenic in your dinner,” Aubree retorts with a giggle. “Are we done here, Detectives? Because the chief and I were heading out to forage for food.”
“Sounds perfect.” Fletch turns toward the door. “We’ll join you.”
FLETCH
Mia’s with the nanny. Jada’s coming home. Arch is head over heels stupid in love with his wife. Felix Malone is not in the city. Aubree’s still the cutest friend I never wanted to bang. And Seraphina Lewis…
I follow my friends through the lobby of the George Stanley building and look twice when, at the security desk, the seductive Ms. Lewis wears the world’s most restrictive pencil skirt and heels, while long, mahogany locks bounce against her back. But as she turns her head, and our eyes meet as I pass, my stomach twists with an odd combination of pain and nerves and hunger and rejection that I’ve never felt before.
Fuck, but I don’t know if I like it.
“Fletch!” Aubree, blind to Sera across the lobby, stops at the revolving glass doors and waves me closer. “I’m starving, and you’re slowing the team down.”
“Yeah.”
Eyes to yourself, asshole.Hands in your pockets.
During the long nights when the world is quiet, when Mia is asleep, and I may have been lucky enough to verbally spar with the deliciously beautiful Sera during the day, I wrap my hands around my cock, rather than my phone, so I’m less tempted to make a call I’m not sure would be received well.
It’s not like I don’t know the woman’s phone number. Or where she lives. Or her relationship status.
But hell, it’s one thing for her to verbally slap me at work; it’s all fun and games then, when I’m only half-serious about the attempts I make in front of our friends. But in the quiet of night, in the dark, when there’s no audience to the words we speak, and vulnerabilities feel heavier, and the risk of rejection grows harsher…
“Fletch!”
“I’m coming.”
Dropping my hands in my pockets and charging toward the spinning glass doors, I emerge behind Aubree into the sunshine outside, and start instantly to the right.
No one verbalizes it. No one plans where we’re going. But that’s the way we walk: toward Tim’s, and toward Minka and Arch’s apartment—which just so happens to be where a couple other Malone brothers are hanging out.
My phone trills in my pocket, buzzing against my thigh and bringing my eyes down as I fish the device out.
I frown at the unknown number on my screen. Copeland City area code, but who the number belongs to is a mystery I can’t solve without heading back to my desk and running a check my captain might get pissy about.
Archer and Minka walk ahead of Aubree and me. His arm wrapped over her shoulder. Her ass, perfect in black slacks and mini-heels.
Why is he allowed to meet his fucking soulmate by chance, inside an airport, and voila, it all works out perfectly? But I meet the woman Ithoughtwas my forever in high school. We nurture the relationship, build it, take care of it. We marry, make a baby, create a home. And BAM! It all goes to shit, like karma had something to punish me for?
That bitch.
Karma. Not Minka.
Falling back, while Aubree rushes to keep up with the others, I swipe to answer my call and bring the phone to my ear. “Detective Charlie Fletcher.” I slow to a stroll and work hard to listen, as street traffic hums and takes up a fat chunk of my brain power.
“Detective Fletcher?” A slurring, familiar voice has my eyes tightening in concentration. “It’s Anthony Garzman.”
“Garzo?”
I think of the man Arch and I not-so-affectionately call ourrat. An asshole, alcoholic civilian who hangs with the undesirables of the city, and if he happens to hear things we might want to know, he makes a call and exchanges information for money.
Money to buy alcohol.
It’s a system he’s too stupid to break away from.
“I’ve been trying to reach you, Detective.” He’s already a few beers into his day, and tired enough that his words roll together. “I was hoping to get you on the phone ages ago, but you didn’t return my calls.”
