Page 26 of Angel In Armani

And even though she knew it wasn’t true … knew that it was her dad’s accident that had started this particular run of bad luck, it felt true. Deep in her gut, where she couldn’t shake it.

Her dad would look at her and he’d bow his head and he’d look that little bit older and grayer. More tired. Since the accident he looked tired a lot.

Hadn’t seen him laugh much, either.

Now she was letting him down. And he had to be thinking that it would have been better if Jamie were still here to run things instead of her.

She rested her head on the steering wheel for a minute, taken by the sudden sharp stab of pain thinking about Jamie. It had been six years and mostly she remembered him with joy but every so often the grief caught her by surprise, stealing her breath and turning the world gray and cold.

From behind her, Dougal whined softly, eager to be out of his harness now that she’d stopped the car in a place he knew. Eager to get inside and cadge some dog biscuits and claim his place by the heating vent in the kitchen.

The thought made her smile and she lifted her head and took a breath before turning around. “Just a minute, buddy.”

Dougal yelped and grinned at her in his doggy way. He liked coming here, liked the extra attention. He’d lived with her parents while Sara had been deployed and he had been thoroughly spoiled.

Just as well, because she was probably going to have to give up her tiny apartment in the city and move back to the island. She wouldn’t be able to afford Manhattan rent anymore. Not even rent-stabilized rent.

She’d taken the apartment on a whim, wanting to have a stake in the city and not just come back home to Staten Island when she’d left the army and Viv had found out one of the studios in her building was coming up for lease. It meant earlier starts and later nights but she loved the city. Loved the energy. Loved feeling like she was in the middle of something big and alive.

Maybe she could find a sublet … something short-term until she found work.

Someone, somewhere needed a pilot. Surely. There were helos all over the place in New York. Someone would hire her. She tried to quell the cold feeling in her stomach.

Think of something good.

The only thing that came to mind, the last thing that had made her feel safe, was the feeling of Lucas’s arms around her as she fell asleep back in that damned motel room.

Which only proved she was crazy.

Because that was never going to happen again.

She’d heard the messages he’d left but hadn’t been able to make herself return his calls. Because if he wanted to hire her again, well, she didn’t have a helo. And if he wanted anything else then it was more likely to be to yell at her than because he’d decided he couldn’t live one more day without sleeping with her again.

It wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t matter how many times the memory of his hands on her stopped her thought processes, it wasn’t going to happen again. It had been one night.

One night that had ended badly.

Seeing him again would just bring another bit of crappy reality into her life.

Which made her a wimp for not dealing with him, but at least a pragmatic wimp. Life was not a fairy tale, and Lucas Angelo wasn’t Prince Charming. He just resembled him on paper.

She’d given in and Googled him in a weak moment. So now she knew all about Lucas Angelo and the Angelo family and their many businesses and their charity work and their accomplishments. Or at least what could be gleaned from the Internet, which seemed to be a large about.

And she knew that Lucas had just bought a share of the New York Saints, which spelled out the fact that his net worth had to be pretty damn healthy in no uncertain terms. She’d been vaguely aware that the Saints had been sold. It was hard to completely avoid baseball on Staten Island, but she hadn’t paid much attention to exactly who had bought the team.

Finding out that Prince Charming was one of them had been a surprise. She hadn’t pegged him as a sports nut. So maybe he wasn’t quite so perfect after all.

She’d never been the least bit interested in sports.

But sports nut or not, there was no denying that Dr. Gorgeous had a pretty good life.

For a moment she wished fervently that she could be Lucas Angelo. She didn’t want Prince Charming to rescue her, she wanted to have Prince Charming’s resources so she could rescue herself. Have so much money that she didn’t have to worry about anything.

What would life be like?

Glorious. Easy.

She sighed and cut off the fantasy. Because money would solve her problems yes, but that didn’t mean her life would magically be trouble-free. So she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Starting with getting out of the damned car and going to talk to her dad.

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