I scoffed.
Hot and cold. Cold and hot. God, talking to him gave me whiplash. One minute he was dragging me out of trouble, and the next he was pushing every damn button.
Predictably reckless?Whatever.I could be predictable if I wanted to. I just chose not to be. And reckless? Well, maybe. But reckless was interesting. Reckless made you feel something. Unlike him—Mr. I-Iron-My-Suits-At-Midnight who glared at everyone as if smiling physically hurt him. But hell, if it wasn’t working. Annoyingly, inconveniently working. Marco wasn’t even my type. Or maybe he was becoming my type. God forbid.
“Don’t you have someone else’s night to ruin?” I asked dryly, stepping back toward the door.
“Don’t you?”
“Probably,” I admitted. Truthfully, I didn’t have much else going on tonight. Or any night lately. But I sure as hell wouldn’t tell him that. He already thought I was a walking disaster—no need to confirm it.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from lingering there just a second longer, letting my hand rest on the doorknob. It was irritating how much I wanted him to keep talking, to follow me inside, to prove he wasn’t as indifferent as he pretended to be. It was even more irritating that I cared at all.
I pushed the door open, stepping halfway in.
“Good night, Marco,” I teased, though it fell flat even to my ears. “Try not to miss me too much.”
His jaw ticked, and his gaze dropped, like he was holding back some snarky remark or insult. Or maybe he was just done with my bullshit for tonight. That was probably it. Maybe I was done too. Maybe we both were.
As I shut the door behind me, I knew I’d think about him tonight. How annoying he was, how frustrating he was, how ridiculously handsome he was in that uptight, irritating, too-serious way of his.
Predictably reckless.
The asshole wasn’t wrong . . .
CHAPTER 17
MARCO
My phone buzzed in my pocket again—louder this time.
Dr. Carter’s office. Another missed appointment, and she still hadn’t gotten the hint. Persistent as hell, that woman. It wasn’t personal. She was good at her job, better than most, but there wasn’t a damn thing she could tell me that I didn’t already know. My shoulder was screwed, my knee was even worse, and my career—if you could still call it that—had already been shot to hell months ago, when I handed in my resignation.
Physical therapy was a joke. A painfully monotonous routine of forced optimism. Show up, stretch, wince through the same tired movements, and then pretend to listen while some overly cheerful PT assistant repeated bullshit about “progress” and “healing.” Like if I just nodded along enough, it’d magically take the edge off the constant pain.
It never did.
Truth was, the appointments felt pointless. All the promises about rehabilitation and recovery sounded hollow when my body refused to cooperate. What was the point anyway? It wasn’t like I had a job to get back to. The military had moved on themoment I became inconvenient. Replaceable. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but I’d accepted it.
My phone buzzed again. Jesus,persistentdidn’t even begin to describe them.
Besides, my head wasn’t even in it anymore. The physical therapy, the career—I didn’t have the patience left for either. My attention was focused elsewhere these days. On New York. On a certain brunette who seemed intent on complicating my life in every way imaginable. Valentina was chaos and trouble, and apparently, I was exactly the kind of idiot who couldn’t stop chasing after that.
I silenced the phone and shoved it deeper into my pocket, ignoring the lingering ache in my shoulder. The pain was something I could live with. Dealing with whatever mess Valentina had waiting for me next, on the other hand ... That was going to be the real challenge.
I shifted in my chair, jaw tightening as I forced myself to pay attention to the meeting again. I should’ve stayed focused. Max, Mikhail, Giovanni. I’d been stuck with them for years now, ever since Remy first pulled me into their circle.
They were more like brothers than business partners at this point, which mostly meant they drove me crazy on a daily basis. Giovanni talked too much, Mikhail scowled too often, and Max always acted like he knew better than everyone else—which, annoyingly, he usually did.
They argued endlessly, spending hours debating money none of them actually needed, but I stayed. I became a part of their Suits. Probably out of loyalty to Remy, or maybe habit. Either way, I wasn’t going anywhere, even if most days I wanted to throttle all three of them.
Things had been simpler back when Max still cared about discretion. When he kept his head down to avoid drawing attention to the fact he was quietly dealing with people heshouldn’t have been involved with. People like the Clarkes. But now his attention was divided, and Valentina had become a part of it all.
I didn’t like how complicated things had gotten. Didn’t like how every time Max tightened his grip on her, it inevitably dragged me deeper into a situation I had no business caring about. Yet here I was, unable to step away, forced into confrontations I’d rather avoid.
It pissed me off, how personal it had all become.
I mean, for fuck’s sake, I was only supposed to be his lawyer, and yet here I was, catching myself thinking about her multiple times a day.
