Page 35 of Queen's Ransom

She smiled, equal parts wistful and melancholy. “There is someone, but she’s way out of my league.” Celia juggled far better than her—the shop, kids, family—and she’d had to do so from such a young age. Hell, Helena had still been in her acting out phase when Celia became a mom. Granted, Helena was still grieving her parents’ death, but the privilege and advantages she’d had were staggering in comparison. Celia had come so far, had so much to offer someone, and what did Helena have to offer other than snark and danger?

Oak’s shoe nudged her shin. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Are you a card-carrying member of the Helena fan club again?”

He chuckled as he straightened in his chair. “I haven’t laminated it yet.” He grabbed the whiskey bottle and poured them each another shot. “Why are you talking to me about this and not your brothers?”

She sloshed the amber liquid around in the glass. “Well, one’s about to marry her brother and the other has his own crumbling relationship to deal with.” She lifted the glass and tilted it toward him again. “And because you seem like a pretty strong tree.”

Chapter Fifteen

Celia heard Helena coming a mile away. The angry roar of the Ducati pushed too hard, the screech of tires as she skidded the bike to a halt in the garage yard, heavy footballs splashing through parking lot puddles, short clipped words exchanged with Victoria outside the bay door. Then retreating footsteps in a different now familiar gait, Victoria’s, the Ducati restarting and growling as Victoria exited the lot on it. Finally, two slaps against the gate and door button. All that racket, caused by someone who had snuck up on her yesterday without a peep, meant two things: Helena wanted Celia to know she was there, and she wanted her to know she was hella pissed.

Celia rolled her head on the dolly’s padded headrest, eyeing a pair of black leather boots spread shoulder width apart at the rear of the Bentley. Racket and movement beyond Helena’s feet drew Celia’s attention to the yard where the flood lights reflected off the newly lined metal gate rolling closed. Seconds later, the clanking bay door cut off Celia’s view of the dark, drippy outdoors entirely.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Celia?” Oh, not even a Cee. Helena’s words were as sharp and angry as her movements. Nothing like the softness and warmth of yesterday. Cold even, like Celia had heard in Hawes’s voice at the station, but that wasn’t all there was in Helena’s. It was more like a cold front holding back the heat, like the last gasp of foggy midsummer in the city before late summer arrived with a triple degree heatwave. Fire simmered beneath Helena’s clipped question.

A fire Celia had knowingly put there. She wasn’t a fool. She knew coming to the garage would piss Helena off, yet she’d done it anyway. She couldn’t magically reverse the last two hours, and she wouldn’t even if she could. She cringed at the wrath she’d wrought, but she wasn’t going to back down. In for a penny, in for a pound. “What’s it look like I’m doing? And that’s five dollars to the swear jar.”

“You’re responsible for that?”

“I am.”

“Good, we need all the help we can get there. And I thought you said you had all the help you needed to cover here today.”

She rolled her face away from Helena’s feet, focusing on the underbody above her, and finished the checks on the Bentley. “I did.”

Helena stalked from the back of the car to the driver’s side, closer to where Celia was wheeled under. “Then why are you here?”

“Because I promised Bill his Bentley tomorrow, and I needed to do the final checks.”

“Lorenzo couldn’t do it?”

She tightened the last bolt and rolled out from under the sedan. Directly between Helena’s spread legs. She stared up at the fetching woman in dark denim, blue cashmere, and a rain-dappled leather duster. With her blond hair and fiery blue eyes, she looked like an avenging angel. The sexiest one Celia had ever seen, and it only made her want to draw Helena closer, fire be damned.

“It’s my name on this shop.” She pointed with a wrench to the roof near the front of the shop where Perri Auto Works was installed on the fascia outside. “It’s my reputation, my family’s reputation and livelihood, and the livelihood of everyone who works for me.”

Helena flicked out the ends of her coat and shoved aside the lapels so she could plant her hands on her hips, one of them cocked. Oh, she was mad, and fucking gorgeous. “None of which will matter if you wind up dead.”

“Victoria was on guard.”

“That’s not the point, Cee.”

Celia felt a little remorse for the worry that seeped into Helena’s voice, but she wasn’t done making her point. “No, it wasn’t.” She set the wrench aside, wiped her hands on the shop rag in the pocket of her coveralls, and levered up onto her elbows. “You want to know why I’m here?”

Helena ditched her jacket altogether, jerking it off and hurling it onto a stack of tires. She lowered into a crouch, holding herself inches above Celia’s middle. “Can’t wait to hear this one.”

If the heat had been simmering before, it was boiling now, and flowing directly Celia’s direction, ratcheting up the pulse pounding between her legs. She was past the point of no return, and she had no intention of turning back. The hummingbirds in her stomach were going wild, spinning and fluttering, but at this point, Celia didn’t see a way to calm them other than to feed them, and the best shot at doing that was to give Helena the pure unvarnished truth. “Because after spending all day knocking around your house, wondering what it would be like to kiss you in this room or that, I had to get out of there.”

What little frost remained melted away, Helena’s smirk and her crouch deepening. She braced her forearms on her knees and leaned her torso more fully over Celia’s. “You could have gone to your house. We’ve cleared it. All the security is set up, and you’d have guards.”

“But then I’d just wonder what it would be like to kiss you there.”

Helena’s blue eyes flashed icy hot and the corner of her mouth hitched higher. Celia wanted to lunge up and capture those twisted lips, wanted another taste of the woman she couldn’t get out of her mind, sure the flavors would be different yet no less amazing today. But before she could make her move, Helena grasped the zipper tab of her coveralls and slid it down. She let her fingers linger above where Celia wanted them most, and Celia bit back a gasp, the boiling heat inside her barreling south on a tidal wave of lust. “For someone who’s only dated one other person, you’re awfully good at this flirting thing.”

“Have you met my brother?”

“Let’s not bring him into this.”

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