Donatello acted as if he wasn’t going to tell me until I punched him in the gut. “You are a vicious woman. I didn’t know that about you.”
“Like hell you didn’t. Now speak or I’ll beat it out of you.”
“I just wanted to check a few things out. Maybe I was concerned we were being followed.”
“Please do not tell me you hunted someone down only to discover they were innocent, but since you exposed who you were, you had to go ahead and kill them, then hide the bodies.”
“Did I look covered in blood when I returned?” he demanded, even looking down at the clothes he was wearing.
“No, but that’s something you do.”
“I do not do that.”
With another hard look, I shook my head. “What about the guy who stole from the warehouse?”
“Which time?”
“Oh, my God. The time the champagne was stolen for the huge wedding reception at Indulgence?”
“Oh, that.” He waved his hand. “So the guy wasn’t guilty of theft, but he was of breaking and entering.”
“Because he was told that was the door to use when coming to work for me. You didn’t need to break his arm.”
“Yeah, I did. He pissed me off. I didn’t kill him.” He made a sharp turn and I grumbled under my breath.
“You are terrible.”
“That’s not what you said last night.”
We were staring at each other for a full two minutes until I realized he’d managed to park. Somehow without killing us.
That’s also when I’d realized he’d pulled in front of a little church.
“What is this place?” With my question being whispered, no longer holding the same sarcastic amusement from before, I was certain the words floated toward never-never-land becausethat’s the only place and time where a moment like this could exist.
Not because it wasn’t something that I hadn’t thought about or even admitted albeit silently that I wanted, but because at the end of the day, the same barbarian rules would apply.
I was forbidden to anyone considered an employee and at minimum half the male population of the human race.
With the engine off, the only sound available was that of the ocean waves hitting the shoreline maybe a hundred feet away.
And of course the rapid thumping of my heart.
“This would be a church,” he said, not only with certainty, but also with a degree of arrogance.
I tipped my head toward him. “I can see that. Why are we here?” I had a minimum of a dozen questions, all of which died on my tongue. Few things stunned me in my life. This was by far the weirdest and most demanding idea I’d taken part in.
“To fulfill a promise. I am a man of my word. Come on.”
He wasn’t taking no for an answer, including when he opened my door for me, guiding me with a hard tug onto the gravel. As always, he scanned the area, checking to ensure we were alone. There were no vehicles and no indication the church was even open to visitors.
“There’s no one here. We can’t break in.”
“Trust me. There’s someone here.”
“Why does that sound scary?”
God, I did so love hearing his laugh.
