Page 16 of A Taste Of Darkness

“Certainly,” I answered. “Well? What are you waiting for?”

The guy nodded at me, then stepped back. A moment later, Sterlie came walking into my office, closing the door behind her. Her cheeks were flushed, had a slight pink tint to them. She held her head down; her eyes never met mine.

I wondered if she was embarrassed or pretended to be shy all of a sudden.

“To what do I owe today’s pleasure, cuore mio?”

Sterlie reached a hand into her pastel pink purse, sighed, and then lifted her head. “I accidentally took something of yours this morning when I left…”

“Okay?”

She stepped closer, then slowly, carefully, Sterlie laid a silver card onto my desk before me.

I looked at my platinum AmEx, stifling a smile. I didn’t even know I still had that card lying around somewhere. I only owned it as a backup for my black AmEx, in case I lost it or something like that. Honestly, I had no idea why I still had this card, I owned a lot of credit cards for different bank accounts.

“Should’ve kept it,” I said as I looked up again, finding Sterlie’s eyes. Her blue ones were filled with guilt. She was so innocent, so sweet, I could barely wrap my head around it.

“I went shopping,” she told me. “I didn’t know it was your card until Flora discovered it two hours ago. I swear, I’ll pay you?—”

A chuckle slipped from my throat.

Tears filled her eyes but I didn’t know why. “Please don’t be mad. I really didn’t?—”

“I’m not mad,” I interrupted, eyebrows drawing together. “And don’t bother paying me back. It’s fine. If Kai can refuse to pay back the million dollars his brother stole from me, I’ll survive the couple of cents you spent.” If she’d taken a million dollars from me, I still wouldn’t have cared. Money was the least of my worries. “Besides, you keep using the I’m his fiancée excuse to get inside. It’s about time I paid for something you wanted, seeing as we’re committed to each other.” In my dreams, we were.

She nodded softly, offering me a bright smile. Good. I preferred her happy smile to her guilt-ridden one.

In the short moment, Sterlie stayed silent and simply smiled at me, I knew this was going to be the last time I saw her for a while. She wasn’t going to return, had no reason to either.

Eventually, her smile faltered, and she said, “About yesterday… Thank you, Milo. I probably would’ve just died in some alley if it wasn’t for you.”

I glanced at my phone for a second, then looked back at Sterlie. “No problem at all. I’m always there to help a friend.”

9

TRY AGAIN

Sterlie Adams

“Thank you for helping me with the shelves,” I said as Kai dropped the last tool back into the toolbox he brought.

After a little over a week, I finally decided that I couldn’t continue to live on Flora and Kai’s couch and chose to go back to work. Well, get my store ready so I’d be able to go back to work.

Milo’s people did a great job with the windows, don’t think I’d ever seen them cleaner than they were now. Flora told me they were bulletproof, at least according to Milo, so that was great. However, bulletproof didn’t mean shatter-proof.

Every second I stood inside this building, I felt my hands and legs shake. I expected someone to storm inside and hold a gun to my head again at any moment. With Kai present, that seemed unlikely, but he would leave soon.

“It’s whatever.” Kai rolled his eyes and waved me off.

I knew he hated hearing the words Thank You, which was why I loved saying them to him. If I couldn’t annoy him any other way because he loved my sister more than he disliked me, I could at least make sure he felt resentment for kindness.

Ares, Kai’s younger brother, chose then to come out from the back and hand me a tablet. “Okay, so you’ve got six outdoor security cameras now,” he told me. “Three by the front door to see in every possible direction, and three by the back exit.”

Since my boutique was in between other buildings, there was no need for cameras on the sides. Well, there wasn’t space for them either.

“Thank you so much!” I lunged myself into Ares’s arms. He was the one Auclaire I liked. Not like-like. I could tolerate Ares. He was kind, and so un-like Kai.

“Still don’t understand why you chose to open your boutique here,” Kai said before Ares ever got to say something. See, he was so rude!

---