Page 32 of Love Without Control

Jamie’s hand reached up and stroked his beard with a familiarity and affection that told me she did this often. He was practically purring like a fucking kitten at her attention.

“Thanks, babe. Anyway, like I was saying, I was working late on that dreary night when a man suddenly appeared inside my office, all wet and menacing looking.” She smacked her hand against the table. “He had the damn audacity to wave a gun around and insist that I perform surgery on him to change his appearance.”

Beside me, Evie widened her eyes in horror. “What did you do?”

Jamie bobbed her eyebrows up and down. “I reached in my desk drawer and pulled out my own gun. Clicked off the safety and pointed it directly at his head.”

“Such a badass move,” Robert said, kissing her temple.

“You still didn’t leave,” she reminded him, casting a fond look up at his furry face before returning her attention to us. “The jackass made himself at home in the chair across from my desk—with my gun still trained on him, mind you—and spilled his guts. He’d been in the Mafia in New York but wanted to go straight. He begged me to help him because some asshole named Luca Cappitani was after him.” She cast a chagrined smile at me.

“Sounds familiar,” I said dryly. “What happened next?” I was fully invested in this story now.

“I told him to place his gun carefully in my desk drawer, and then we’d talk. To my surprise, he did.”

“May I add something, oh, great storyteller?” Robert asked his wife, and Evie giggled at their antics.

“Please do,” Jamie said solicitously.

He gave her another temple kiss before speaking to Evie and me again. “I’d been watching this beautiful lady for a few days and was already half in love with her.”

“Stalker,” Jamie said around a fake cough, and we all laughed.

“I mean, she was an older woman…”

“Three years, Robert,” his wife scolded, holding up that many fingers for emphasis. “I’m onlythree yearsolder than you.”

He ignored her and continued. “But she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. And so fucking smart. She sat there that night and listened to me.” His voice turned quieter. “Her brother had been killed by the Shower Gang in Jamaica, which is kinda like our Mafia here, so she took pity on me since I wanted to get out of that life. She agreed to help me.”

Evie reached across the table and squeezed the other woman’s hand. “I’m so sorry about your brother, Jamie.”

“Thank you. I told Robert—well, Rocco back then—if he was serious about cleaning up his life, I would do what I could. Instead of radical reconstructive surgery, I suggested he shave his head and grow a full beard. Facial hair on a man can completely change their look. He had a very prominent brow line, so I did do surgery to reduce that.”

“Cro-Magnon head, I believe were her exact words,” Robert added, and I snickered. “As soon as I was healed, she sent me away and told me not to come back until I had my shit straight. So I went to school and became a coiffure artisan.”

A… what?

“He’s a hairstylist,” Jamie informed us dryly.

My chin pulled back in surprise as I looked at the smug face of Robert. “Youare a hairstylist?”

“Don’t sound so shocked,” he said with a grin, twiddling his large fingers at me. “These hands can work hair magic. That’s my day job, of course. By night, I’m a covert computer and technology guru.”

At my questioning gaze, Jamie huffed out an explanation with a roll of her eyes. “Hacker.”

“Covert computer and technology guru,” Robert insisted. “I know I said I was going straight but…” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Instead of using my computer skills to launder money for the mob, I now use it to help people who need me.”

“What kinds of people?” Evie asked, speaking for the first time in a while.

Jamie gave her a soft smile. “We work with a lot of abused women or people who need to disappear like Robert did. People who are searching for a better life.”

Evie nodded once and dropped her chin to her chest. I could hear her breathing pick up, and then she stood abruptly, mumbled, “Excuse me,” and hightailed it down the hallway, presumably to her room.

Starting to push from my chair, I said, “I’ll go check on her.”

Jamie rose gracefully and motioned for me to sit back down. “Let me.”

Exhaling a long breath, I sank back down and rested my elbows on the table, sinking my fingers into my dark hair.

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