“Thanks for the advice.”
“She’s a beautiful woman.”
My eyebrow rose.
“Just because I say she’s beautiful doesn’t mean I’m attracted to her. Fleur is the one who said she’s a hot piece of ass.”
The smile that stretched across my mouth was involuntary.
“Will you tell me about her now?”
I grabbed the glass and finished it. “Guess so.”
“What do you like about her?”
Words didn’t come to me, but flashes of memories and sensations of emotions. The way she pushed back every time I gave attitude. The way she begged for help and hated herself for doing it. “I don’t care about people often, but I’ve cared about her since the moment she jumped into my car.” Cared about her tears when they fell. Cared about the years she spent surviving on her own. Cared about her before I even knew her. “When she left and moved in to her apartment, I thought about her constantly. Thought it would pass in a couple days, but it just got worse. Was free to stick my dick anywhere I wanted, but there was only one place it wanted to go.” I’d received invitations by text. While I was out on the town. I turned down all the offers.
“That’s why you came to the party alone.”
“I guess…” I’d never gone to one of those things solo, but I didn’t have it in me to bring someone. Almost didn’t go to the damn dinner at all.
“Are you going to destroy whoever killed her family?”
“I don’t know. That was before the Fifth Republic was founded. Technically, they didn’t do anything wrong at the time.”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “Technically.”
“And she’s free now. Seems a bit reckless to squander that for revenge that won’t bring back her family.”
“So, she hasn’t asked you to do anything?”
“No,” I said. “And I don’t think she will.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve already done so much for her. She doesn’t try to take advantage of my generosity. That’s something I respect.”
Bastien gave a nod. “We should all have dinner together sometime. You know, that way, she can see that we’re actually friends rather than enemies.”
I scoffed. “Her initial assessment was right.”
He chuckled. “Asshole.”
“Luca.”
I sat across from Jerome at the table and worked on the transfer. “In a minute.”
Carvel came to the table and stood over me.
I worked on the transactions with Carvel leering over my shoulder like a goddamn gargoyle. “You want to make out?” I gave him a shove.
“Luca, we need to talk now.”
I looked up at him and gave him a glare. He’d interrupted me in the middle of payment with one of the gangs, when tensions were the worst. No one liked to watch their wallet get cut in half.
He gave me a glare back before he walked off.
I shut the laptop with a snap. “We’ll finish this tomorrow. The distributions don’t leave the facility.” I grabbed the laptop and followed Carvel to the other room, our armed guards with rifles moving with us. “What the fuck was that, Carvel?”
