Page 27 of Ruthless Love

For no reason at all, I tell her all the things I shouldn’t. But my cover was paper thin, and I have a feeling she’s smarter than people give her credit for. Inclined to build a real rapport with her, I go with my gut.

“I wasn’t blowing him off. Or you. I really don’t have a background in residential design. My very brief history in construction includes the Valor Group and several buildings put up to defend against mortar attacks. Or surveillance. Or just the unbearable desert heat. I don’t exactly have a knack for the sophistication required for a job like that.” I leave out my more recent military operations and grab another peach.

“I’ve seen your work. You’re being modest. And it’s not some major project we’re talking about. It’s mine. Well, sort of, anyway. I can show you my sketches sometime, just to pick your brilliant mind and see what you come up with.”

I opt not to argue when she calls me brilliant and find myself intrigued with what she might have drawn. “I’d love to see them.”

“Now, can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Why are you a prostitute? I mean, is it to keep you in the obvious lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to until your architect status skyrockets? Or do you love it?”

When the doorbell rings a second later, I offer to get it, relieved to have a moment to come up with an answer. As I take the pizza and tip the delivery guy, I think about just telling her I’m not a male hooker, but then I’d have to explain the Five. Plus, not gonna lie—there’s something about that gigolo persona that I’m confident rocking.

Once she has the pie in the oven, Evie grabs a bottle of red in one hand and an ice-cold beer in the other, waving each option, requesting my choice. Though I never mind a beer, that cabernet has my name written all over it, so I point to it.

She hands it to me with a corkscrew. “Well?”

Thinking back to her question, I say, “Obviously, I have to put any and all of my God-given talents to good use.”

“Obviously,” she says with a smirk.

Over her fancy wine and my laid-back pizza, we talk about everything and nothing. Her work. My work. Her day. My day. Mostly, she talks and I listen. I credit part of that to my operative days, and part to the fact that I like listening to Evie.

She’s spunky and snarky, and I try to stop from staring too hard at the streak of flour on her cheek, but I can’t help it. I brush it off with my thumb. Maybe it’s the wine, but she lets me.

There’s also no bullshit between us, which is a refreshing change from the women I’m used to. The ones set to impress with their lethal combination of fake hair, overinflated tits, and eager beavers.

Evie isn’t fake. She isn’t eager. And those gorgeous breasts that were pressed up against me less than an hour ago were definitely real.

I have to laugh out loud when she says, “And clear as day, the two were fucking right on the copier as I walked in.” She takes a sip of her wine as I try to keep mine from coming out my nose. “I’d never seen two men go at it before.”

The realization hits me. “Oh my God. You just stood there and watched, you voyeur.”

“Nooo,” she says. “I also discreetly snapped a few shots.” Proudly, she waves her phone at me. “And now, thanks to me, it’s become a little thing called evidence.”

“But you kept watching after that, right?”

She shrugs, looking at me with innocence in her eyes as she goes in for a large mouthful of pizza.

Another realization hits me, but not wanting to be critical or rude, I broach the subject with a fair amount of caution. “Can I ask you a question?”

She gives me a full three-hundred-sixty-degree eye roll before downing the last of her wine.

“Don’t judge,” she says, more as a statement than a plea. “I don’t stay at Dimitri’s place because he has his life and I have mine. He travels a lot, and I don’t want to rattle around in a fourteen-thousand-square-foot house all by myself. I did enough of that growing up. That and I’m pretty sure he’s fucking around, and the last thing I need is something like that flaunted right in front of me.”

The shock on my face must be noticeable, because immediately and more timidly than before, she repeats herself. “I said don’t judge.”

“I wasn’t. I’m not. I, uh ... wasn’t about to ask that at all.” Backpedaling, I quickly say, “I just thought the pie might be ready.”

She blinks back her embarrassment.

“It sort of smells amazing,” I add, my words coming out like a question.

Evie jumps up and races for the oven. With an oven mitt in one hand, she pulls out the hot pie, inspecting it before setting it on top of the stove.

When she doesn’t move and keeps staring at it, I step up to take my own look. “Wow. That looks incredible.”

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