Page 18 of Dangerous

“There’s not muchtodo.” I reached over and grabbed one of her leftover pieces of pineapple from the cardboard and popped it into my mouth. “It is what it is, and we can’t change that, much as we want to. So the way I see it, we have two options open for us. Either we continue bickering every chance we get, or… we try to get along as best we can. I figure if we pick option two, maybe we’ll be just slightly less miserable.”

She snorted and a flicker of amusement pulled at the corner of her mouth.

“What’s funny?”

The flicker turned into a full, albeit wry, smile. “Just that I’m failing miserably as a psychologist, what with leaving the calm rationalization up to the thug in the room while I’m busy freaking out. The irony is sort of poetic.”

I raised both eyebrows at her in mock-insult. “The thug?”

Mira waved a hand dismissively at me. “Thug, crime lord, mobster. Take your pick.”

I chuckled. “I almost want to see you call my father a ‘thug’to his face.”

She sighed again and looked at me, this time with a questioning frown that made her look oddly innocent. My cock gave a spasm in agreement of my assessment.

“Do you think we can make it work?” she asked.

“What, the marriage?”

“The trying-to-get-along-thing,” she said quickly. “I’m under no illusion that it’ll ever be an actual marriage, but… maybe if we can figure out to just get along, that’ll be enough.”

I gave her a small smile. “Yeah, I think we can try that.”

Getting along would be a massive step up from what I’d envisioned my future with her to be like just this morning, yet when I left her room to get on with my night shortly after, it wasn’t relief that made me draw in a deep breath before I headed for the stairs.

If “getting along” was much more than what I’d been hoping for this morning, then why was part of me disappointed that she’d made it so clear she had no intentions of making the marriage work?

Ten

Mira

Sharing that pizza was the last time in more than a week that I saw Blaine. Sure, I’d occasionally hear him banging around in the kitchen when I was in my bedroom, or hear his shower going while I trotted down the stairs to the kitchen myself, but we didn’t actually come face-to-face at any point.

At the beginning, I found it such a relief. Not actually seeing him meant I didn’t have to really deal with him, which made getting along so much easier. I talked to Rob—the goon who was most frequently stationed outside our front door—and got my shopping arrangements sorted out, and was on that occasion handed the platinum AmEx Blaine had apparently told his righthand man to give to me with instructions to use it as I pleased, “within reason.”

I’m not going to lie, the “within reason” part only lasted until I’d opened up John Lewis’ website.

My job as a psychologist allowed me to get by just fine, but I’d never before been in a situation where I could get all the furnishings I dreamed of with just a few clicks of a button. It was completely intoxicating.

I spent a full week in an online shopping frenzy, which I vaguely justified with my plan to befriend Blaine. It was obvious that he expected me to be a good little homemaking mob wife, and as long as that only involved buying pretty things with his money, I was happy to play the part.

Only, on the ninth day, when most of my purchases arrived at the door, Blaine was nowhere to be found.

“Where is he?”

Rob gave me a short glance over the top of the gold-striped sofa he and his partner for the day were in the process of dragging through the hallway and into one of the reception rooms. “Out.”

“Out where?” I followed the two men, ensuring they put the sofa where I’d specified.

“Working. Here?”

I nodded, and the two goons put the sofa down on the new rug in front of the heavy coffee table they’d carried in before.

“When will he be back?”

“Dunno.” Rob rubbed his lower back with a sigh before heading back toward the hallway, no doubt eager to get done with dragging furniture for me as soon as possible.

I plopped down on my new sofa and bit my lip as the flaw in my plan finally dawned on me. While Blaine not being around meant I didn’t have to deal with him, it also meant that I was nowhere near my goal of befriending him. And if he didn’t hang around long enough that I could make him trust me, then there was zero chance he would ever give me enough rein that I could eventually escape.

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