The King of Diamonds wasn’t a part of this conversation; hell, even Adrian Vale, the man I wanted Delilah to see, couldn’t be a part of this. Only my rawest self could be there, and I had to accept whatever happened. No note; no flashy car; no penthouse. If Delilah was living in a studio apartment in the worst part of Reno, eating takeout pizza every night, I had to fucking meet her there.
It was the only way to make it work.
That, and doing whatever it took to stop playing the fucking game that seemed so fun, so captivating, and yet was truly so destructive to everything and everyone I loved.
Minutes later, I was back in my car, speeding to the private plane bay of Harry Reid International Airport. I didn’t play any music while I drove, and I didn’t make any calls along the way. It was one of the quietest, most focused drives I had ever made.
This was giving up my time, my focus, and my gravitas to prove to Delilah that I meant to have her back. If it didn’t work, it would be a miserable experience, a waste of a private flight to and from Reno. There was, frankly, a very good chance that was bound to happen. It felt entirely unnatural to be going without a gift, without my diamond cufflinks, without anything to give her other than myself. I even promised myself that unless she asked for it, I would not offer her the private plane.
Not because I didn’t want her a mile high.
But because I had to let her choose if she wanted us to be forever.
CHAPTER 28
Delilah
Ihad moved on from Adrian Vale.
That was what I told myself as I drove home from a late night at the office. I hadn’t heard anything from him since the note, which was… strangely disappointing. Like, that was it? There wasn’t going to be any more grand gestures, no more sweeping attempts to win me back?
I guessed not. That meant I had to move on and focus on my new investigative work.
And the one perk of being in a new city, surrounded by new colleagues, and with new sources was that no one knew how to read between my lines. If I told them I was fine, they had no reference point to believe otherwise. If they thought I looked pained, they would assume the simplistic explanation I gave them was true.
In a sense, it was true. It just wasn’t the full truth.
But this definitely was the full truth, moving on from Adrian Vale.
It was also true that I was beyond exhausted today, even if the name Adrian Vale had meant nothing to me. I had spoken with an assassin who had moved from Russia and, on the surface, operated a chain restaurant. It had been one of thetensest encounters I had ever had, especially since he had said, “I will shoot your fucking brains out if I so much as hear a siren.”
Had Adrian been there, I knew he wouldn’t have let that fly. He might not have done something stupid, but he would have done something strong.Why am I even thinking about this?
I had to admit, objectively, the assassin was a handsome man. I was not attracted to him—I liked my men powerful, but not so much so that they took lives—but it was easy to see that him saying he could get any woman he laid eyes on was not as much a brag as it would have been on other men. His presence, too, was chilling; not in the way Adrian’s was, but in a way that said he would absolutely kill if he had to.
It left me wondering what might happen to the woman he laid eyes on that he decided would be his. He swore he had never killed a woman, but, anyway?—
I pulled into my apartment complex to a very peculiar sight.
A silver Lamborghini Aventador.
The very car that Adrian had driven me to Aces Up in.
There was… no fucking way, right? Even if Adrian wanted to win me back, I didn’t think he’d drive all the way up from Vegas to here. He valued his time too much. The King of Diamonds would never lower himself to driving a long road trip for any one woman.
The lights on the car flashed suddenly.
And out of the shadows, a familiar figure moved.
In just about any other circumstances, fear would have washed over me. Not even a journalistic instinct to observe and learn would have kept me rooted to my feet. The sight of any man in the dark that I was not expecting was cause for alarm, most especially with my new role.
But this wasn’t any other circumstance, was it?
“Delilah Reyes,” the familiar voice said. “Hello. Did you miss me?”
He stepped into the light.
And Adrian Vale was dressed surprisingly casually.
