Page 10 of Inspiring Dominic

My eyes briefly dropped to her lips. “Which means, you knew who I was before the other night.”

She nodded. “I did, but I hadn’t planned on running into you at the movie theater a couple nights ago. I’d had a rough night at the bar, and you were a welcome distraction.”

I squinted, observing her more before asking, “Why were you at the bar pretending to work when we first met?”

“I actually do work at the bar,” she answered. “I don’t like labels, but I guess you can call me an investigative crime reporter or news journalist of sorts. At any given time, my pieces are commissioned by a variety of news and media outlets, and to get the best stories, I must go undercover sometimes. I know I’m not the Prescott family’s favorite person—”

“Sam Stevens isn’t our favorite person. The jury is still out on Samara Alonso.”

I didn’t miss the slight smile that she tried to mask before she clarified by telling me, “I’ve been going undercover at the bars under the Prescott Holdings’ umbrella for a year.”

“And you think Prescott Holdings is involved in some sort of money laundering like your articles imply?”

“I know they are,” she stated. “Not so much your family’s company, but your Security Director, Robert Lanson. And Prescott Holdings hasn’t been doing anything to stop him.”

“Prescott Holdings is not involved with anything illegal.” I clenched my jaw, letting her words sink in. Robert Lanson had been with the company since before I was born, and although he wasn’t my favorite person, he was like family to some of the staff.

Samara linked her hands together, leaning closer to me, her sweet scent really fucking with me.

“Listen, I like you and I’m not trying to make this complicated for you or your family, but I also have a job to do. I knew you were the CSO of Prescott Holdings, but I didn’t know I would be meeting with you today. I thought I’d be meeting with your PR Manager.”

“We’re a family-owned business, and when our name is being slandered, we handle business ourselves.”

“I’m not the enemy here,” she defended. “I’m just the person trying to get to the bottom of a bigger problem in Miami. Now that you know your SD is involved with crap he shouldn’t be, you can help me do my job and clear Prescott’s name or you can choose to continue to ignore the situation and let me do my job until someone of higher authority gets involved.”

Everything she was saying made me want to curse her ass out. Yet, if what she was saying was true, my family had a big problem on their hands.

“You don’t seem that surprised to find out who I really am,” she pointed out, leaning back in her chair, observing my behavior.

Instead of responding right away, I watched her, studied her, thinking back to the moment I’d heard her sexy voice. A voice I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear again. “Am I surprised to find out you’re Sam Stevens? Surprisingly, not really.” My eyes went to the slop of her neck that I’d just licked the other night. “Do I think that I’ve found out who you really are? Not even close.”

Her lips parted, and all I wanted to do was pull her from her chair and kiss her the way I’d enjoyed devouring her two times prior. I’d never met a woman like Samara, and she had layers that I bet took years to unpeel, and even then, you’d still find more of her to discover.

Clearing her throat, she asked, “So what will it be, Dom? Are you going to help me figure out how the Security Director of Prescott Holdings is involved? Or do you want to pretend like this conversation never happened?”

I chuckled, leaning over the table. “You had to know the minute I saw you standing across the street that I was going to work with you to figure it out.”

“Good. Because Robert is on vacation.”

“I’m well-aware of that,” I told her. “I approved it.”

“I figured, but did you also know that he’s headed to Cuba and scheduled a meeting with one of the biggest banks known for illegal offshore accounts in a few days?”

I shook my head, my mind already going through everything I knew about Robert outside of the business. “No, I wasn’t aware of that.”

Samara pulled out a Post-it note with some information jotted down. “Here’s my flight information. I’m leaving for Cuba in a couple days, and if Prescott Holdings wants to control the narrative, I suggest you accompany me on this trip.”

“Don’t we need a visa to travel to Cuba?”

Samara nodded, a cunning look in her eyes. “Typically, yes. However, there are other ways around it. If we book yours the same way I booked mine, then we’ll fly into Mexico first, and from there, head to Cuba. Not conventional, but effective.”

“I’m in,” I confirmed, slipping the note into my pocket and jotting down my information for her to book my flights. The old Dom would have had several things to consider before agreeing. However, I was really taking Grandad’s request to heart, and honestly, I hadn’t done anything this spontaneous in a while.

“You know, Dom, whatever this is going on between us,” she motioned back and forth, “well, I guess—”

“You want to put an end to it for the sake of business,” I finished.

“Not what I was thinking at all.” Her eyes dropped to my lips. “Unless you’re no longer interested in taking things further now that you know who I am.”

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