Page 20 of The Woman in the Garage

“Oh, thank God,” I said, sighing as I slumped back against my chair.

“Things that tight around here?” he asked, brow quirked up.

“I’m still… working out how tight things are or aren’t. But there won’t be a problem paying that monthly.” Even if it would have looked better invested in some new flooring in the waiting room. Maybe a nice little coffee and cold drink station. A new TV.

I’d just have to get even better at shopping for deals and thrifting and… doing the elbow greasing all by myself.

It would be fine.

“Lost you again,” Santo said.

“Sorry. I’m a little… all over the place at the moment,” I admitted, waving at my head. “This has all been a lot.”

“Sorry to pile on.”

“No. Actually, oddly, you’re kind of the least of my worries. Which sounds insane. I mean how is being in bed with the mob the least of my concerns, right? I mean… notin bed,” I rushed to say, feeling my eyes bugging. “I just meant… involved with. You know, in the protection racket way.”

Good lord.

I needed to shut the hell up.

“I’ll get out of your hair then,” Santo said, smiling as he stood, redoing that button in a way that had no right to be assexy as it was. “For the record, though, sweetheart,” he said, turning back. His voice was like a velvet caress as he pitched it just slightly lower, “I would be a lucky fucking man to be in bed with you.”

With that, and nothing else, he was gone.

“That just happened, right?” I asked my empty office as my heartbeat hammered against my ribcage. And that wasn’t to mention the fluttering sensation in a much less appropriate place.

I was suddenly heartbreakingly upset that my uncle was a luddite because I would have killed to have that interaction on video.

To watch over and over again.

Maybe with a glass of wine in the tub with a hand slipped under the water, imagining his hand in its place.

“Dasha—”

“Jesus!” I yelped, nearly falling out of my chair at the sound of David’s voice.

“The door’s open,” he said, gesturing toward it.

“Right. Yeah. Okay. Ah… what?”

“Why are you so red?”

“What? I’m not red.” I was totally red. I could feel the heat on my cheeks and chest. I didn’t have the complexion that allowed me to get a sweet little blush just on the apples of my cheeks. Nope, I went red all over my upper half when I was upset or hot or, well, turned on.

“You sick or something?”

“No. I’m fine,” I insisted, trying to put some steel in my voice. “What did you need?”

“Got a call,” he said.

“For what?”

“Someone said they’re on the way to your place with a delivery.”

“A delivery?” I asked. I mean, yeah, I’d ordered some things online to try to spruce the house up. But nothing that I thought would require them announcing delivery.

“Said you gotta be there or they can’t deliver it.”

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