Page 70 of Pregnant Bratva Wife
He stared at me for a long moment, then let out a low laugh. “I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“You just found something our regular accountant missed.” He took the paper from me with gleaming eyes. “Would you want to look at these more regularly? It would be... helpful.”
I blinked, surprised by the offer. “You’d trust me with your books?”
“They’re legitimate books,” he pointed out. “The interesting accounting happens elsewhere. But this?” He tapped the paper. “This is just good business.”
I considered it. Part of me thought I should say no, that I was crossing a boundary here. But another part—the part that had been bored and restless in that big house—was intrigued.
“I could come in a few days a week,” I said cautiously. “Just to help organize and check the numbers.”
Federico smiled at me like I had been the one to do him a favor, when it was the other way around.
***
Two weeks later, I had my own desk in the back office of The Royal Flush. It was small, tucked in a corner, but it was mine. I came in three afternoons a week, working through the books, finding discrepancies, and suggesting improvements.
It was the most normal I’d felt since marrying Federico.
One morning, I was focused on reconciling last week’s take when Federico appeared at my door, leaning against the frame with a smirk that made my stomach flip.
“You’re becoming a fixture around here,” he said. “The staff has started calling you Mrs. Boss.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m hardly the boss.”
“You fired two dealers last week for skimming.”
“I reported inconsistencies in their tables,” I corrected him. “Youfired them.”
“After you showed me exactly how they were doing it.” He came in, perching on the edge of my desk. “The point is, you’re good at this.”
I tried not to preen under his praise. “It’s just numbers. They don’t lie.”
“Unlike people,” he said wryly.
I looked up at him, caught by his expression. It was intense, the way he looked at me. “Are you okay with this? Me being here so much?”
“More than okay.” He reached out, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. The casual intimacy of it made my breath catch.
And then, like he realized what he just did, he jumped off my desk. Muttered something about how he needed to be somewhere else and rushed out of the office.
It took my racing heart a solid ten minutes to calm down from the feel of his fingers brushing up against my ear.
Chapter 17 - Federico
Autumn had a way of slipping into places she didn’t belong and making everyone act like she’d always been there.
At first, I thought bringing her into the casinos would be a one-time thing. A curiosity to indulge. A favor. But she kept showing up, kept asking questions, kept learning fast enough to be useful. Before long, the staff stopped asking who she was. She had a seat in the back office, as if she owned it.
I started lying to myself—small lies, quiet ones. Every morning, I told myself it made sense to have Autumn around. I said it was practical, said she had a sharp eye for detail, that her presence wasgood for business.As if that was the reason I kept looking forward to the paperwork.
But in all honesty, when I saw her walking around whatever establishment we were working out of that day, I felt my chest tighten in ways that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with the way she moved in my space.
Three weeks. That’s how long she’d been coming into work. Now, she was at the bars too—specificallymybar on 2nd Street.
It was stupid, probably. Letting her this far in. Letting myself… like it.
