Page 8 of Pregnant By the Mafia Boss

“Lovely place,” I say, looking around me. “You come here often?”

“Been here once before.”

“Gregory a friend of yours?”

“Not exactly.” He grins. “If I’m involved, people are usually dying. He’s hoping that it’s not him next on my list.”

He crosses to the blinds, making sure they’re all in place. “This room’s got the best view of the approaches.”

He drags a chair over to the window overlooking the main road, peeling back a corner of the blind before sitting down and looking out. “Get some sleep. We’re moving at first light.”

I walk past him and into the tiny bathroom. It’s the size of a closet, and I bang my elbows getting the door shut.

I sit down to pee, feeling a familiar wave of nausea. It’s been coming and going for days now, and I wish my system would just deal with it.

I belch, then throw up, my throat burning. As I run the faucet to gargle some water, I make the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror.

It’s as though I’ve aged five years in one day. Sallow skin, dark circles under my eyes, dull eyes. I look like hell.

I splash my face with water and dry myself with a hand towel that may once have been white.

When I come out a minute later, Salvatore is sitting up on the bed, his gun on the nightstand beside him.

A distant security light in the parking lot is just bright enough to catch his profile, illuminating his strong jaw and those dark, piercing eyes.

His attractiveness catches me off guard, and I’m struck by a petty urge to be bitchy.

“What are you, the Terminator?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer, of course. I’m about ready to throw something at him when I remember I need to call work.

“I need to borrow your phone.”

Salvatore doesn’t even look at me. “No, you don’t.”

“I need to tell my employees where I am.”

“We’ll get you a burner in the morning.”

“What the hell is a burner?”

“A burner phone. Untraceable, not connected to you. Now, get some sleep.”

“You say that like it’s simple. I’m not used to climbing into bed next to a certified killer in a rat-infested motel bedroom.”

He throws me a look of mock incredulity. “Shit. The rats arereal?”

I glare at him, as he pats the edge of the bed. “Sit down and try to relax. This dump will do for one night,”

I sit, watching him in the dark. “You were telling the truth about my parents, weren’t you?”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think you would. But how d’you thinkIfeel? I never knew my parents, and now you’re telling me they’re both dead. What was my mother like?”

“I only met your father.”

“Tell me about him.”

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