Page 71 of Exposed

A waiter stopped by. I was just about to tell him I wouldn’t be staying, but Poppy cut me off. “We’ll have two glasses of whatever stains the most.”

“Um…stains?” the waiter asked and looked at me.

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Red wine will do,” Poppy said. “But make it expensive. He’s paying.”

The waiter shrugged and walked away.

“Poppy, I told you I’m not having dinner with you. I have plans.”

“It’s just drinks. Besides, we can still tear the contract up, if you want. I think we could really do great things together, Matthew. Expand the business. I’ve always wanted to do more internationally. And with our skills combined? We’d be unstoppable.”

Now she wanted to break international laws? I wasn’t interested in any of it. “I’m in love with Brooklyn.”

She sighed. “How utterly predictable. Are you at least going to thank me?”

“For what?”

“I told you, I did it for you. Partially. I rather enjoyed myself.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Poppy.”

“The car bomb.”

I lowered my eyebrows at her. “What?”

“Don’t look at me like that. I’m not talking about the one that killed Brooklyn’s husband. Although, you’d probably be thanking me for that too if I was responsible. Since you’re in love with her and now she’s single again. But no, that wasn’t my doing. I’m talking about the retaliation. The Locatellis killed a member of my family. So I blew up the Locatelli heir.” She made an exploding gesture, showing just how expendable she thought a human life was. “I thought you’d be pleased with me.”

“What about our contracts makes you think that I’d be pleased about you murdering anyone?”

She shrugged. “Murdering someone you care about is different than murdering someone who’s out of line.”

“Murdering anyone isn’t the solution. Maybe you should learn from what happened with the Locatellis. They resorted to trying to kill Mr. Pruitt’s daughter. And all it got them was losing their son.”

“Oh but Matthew, there is nothing more powerful than instilling fear in your allies. Do you think anyone is going to cross me now?” A smile spread over her face. “I own New York. And it could have been ours together. It still can be…” She reached across the table to grab my hand.

I pulled my hand onto my lap.

She pouted at me.

Really, who did that work on?

“Well, I do need to thank you. For keeping Brooklyn away from the family business. So that I could have what was rightfully mine. And for getting Mr. Pruitt to step down. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. Except someone to share all the glory with.”

Mr. Pruitt stepped down because Brooklyn had asked him to. It had nothing to do with me. But I figured talking about Brooklyn any more in front of Poppy wasn’t a good thing. I just nodded. “Best of luck to you with all that. I’m going to get going…”

“But our drinks just arrived!”

The waiter dropped off two glasses of red wine.

She lifted one up. “Cheers to our future,” Poppy said.

I didn’t lift my glass. “There is no future. It was nice knowing you, Poppy.”

“Nice knowing me? Matthew, we’re about to be family, one way or another.”

One way or another?“Poppy, you and I are done. I’m only going to say this one more time: I’m in love with Brooklyn. I’ve always been in love with her. And I always will be.”

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