Page 47 of When Sinners Hate

I nod her up the steps and laugh. “And you’d like something simple? You’d be bored within a month.”

“I might not be. I might enjoy the simplicity and–”

“Cut the bullshit.” I watch her legs climbing in front of me, getting a good glimpse of skin. “I don’t want it anywhere near us, Lexi.” She stops and looks back at me, tilting her head about. “Don’t pretend you don’t like that name on my tongue either. Get that pretty ass moving.” She smiles lightly and turns away to keep climbing. Doesn’t stop her looking back at me occasionally, though, and even I keep smiling when we reach the cabin.

The luggage is stowed, and I talk with the pilot for ten minutes before getting her buckled in and ready to fly. She watches me the entire time. Probably because she doesn’t know what the hell is going on with me this morning. I’m good withthat. She’s getting parts of me I’ve kept well away from her up until now.

“Well, Abel, I have to say this is all very surprising.” I get us a drink and sit ready for take-off. “I don’t think I’ve ever been buckled in place before. Although, like this is certainly preferable to last night.”

I pass her a drink. “That’s because no one’s given a damn about your survival before now. I do.” Surprising or not, this can be her life now if she chooses it. That man she got a piece of yesterday? He lives inside me all the time. He’s as direct and decent as someone in my line of work gets, and he’s damn protective of anything that means something to him.

She drinks and keeps looking back at me as the engines fire and we start taxing the runway. I don’t spoil it with words, and neither does she. I gaze at her high, cut-glass cheekbones and her lips, and I let her think about what I just said because underneath all this there will always be that fact chasing her and she can’t deny it. No one has cared about her before. And I’m not surprised she’s turned out the way she has. She’s probably had to fight her whole damn life to get the slightest reaction from someone she looks up to, and then the only way she managed to get one was by opening her legs under his damn direction. For all my faults, and all my savagery and cruelty, I can’t imagine doing that to your own child. I meant it when I called Miguel Ortega a piece of shit. I might even kill a man like that if his business didn’t mean as much to me as it does.

~

I could have ordered a driver for us at this end of the flight, but I didn’t feel like it. She wants a little control? She can have it. Might help her realise what’s she’s got in front of her – what she could have all around her.

The guy who’s delivered a brand new, custom grey Camaro passes the keys to me and dares a glance at Lexi behind me. “That’s a dumb fucking move,” I mutter, signing the document he’s given me. He whips his head back to me, servile in nature all of a sudden. So I pass him back the document and toss the keys over my shoulder at her. “You ready darlin’?”

I hear her heels before I see her. She smiles at me as she walks by – a wide, real smile – and slides her ass straight in the driver’s seat. “Where are we going?” she asks, as I get in.

“San Diego’s your city. You tell me. I don’t know anything about it other than watching you in it for a while.”

“What?”

I smirk. “You think I’d let someone into my family that I hadn’t trailed for a while?”

“You followed me?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Enough to know what you did each day before me, and who you fucked and where you did that.”

She frowns. “Stalkerish much?”

“Hmm.”

“Right, well, which hotel?”

“We’ll leave that for later. Show me what you want to do with the rest of the day first.”

“What I want to do?”

“Yes, Lexi. You.”

She scrutinises the empty roadway in front of her for a minute and then looks back at me again. “What’s going on here?”

“Nothing. I want to know how you’ll entertain me. That’s what a husband and wife do, together. It isn’t a trap.”

“I feel like everything’s a trap with you.”

“It still might be.” I chuckle and close my eyes, settling my shoulders back into the car. “But not today.”

The car pulls away slowly, then starts speeding up, and I keep my eyes closed and let her lead me for a while. I don’t care what we do, in all honesty. This is about her feeling what it’s like to be trusted. I can do that out here when we’re miles away from anything that means something to me. In fact, I think I’d rather fuck the rest of this day away in a bed rather than be entertained any other way. I’ve got nothing to do other than concentrate on her for once in my life. Dante and Knox are dealing with things back home, and short of this meeting with her father, I’m free of responsibility to an extent.

The car eventually stops. I open my eyes to see what she’s chosen.

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