Page 149 of Shifting Hearts 1
There are no more words needed between us, and I can bullshit my way through it and say it is because I can read his mind, but the truth is so much more disturbing.
There are no more words needed between us because I think I have finally done it.
I have found the man that I’ll willingly bleed from my soul to keep.
TEN
Alejandro
We spend the rest of the morning sparring in the gym downstairs. I teach her some basic moves, but most importantly, we figure out how to fixate her gift on others too.
She informs me that the waiter is scared shitless of me.
The doorman who brings me my mail has great respect for me.
And she giggles a little when she tells me the chef is disgruntled that I demanded he bring us breakfast himself.
She does glare at the waitress behind the chef, who is making eyes at me, but I get that. The uncontrollable surge of jealousy is real when I see the subtle glances from other men in her direction.
I am sure jealousy fills her as well as we are linked now.
After the rigorous workout and breakfast, we get dressed and go out. I want to take her to the shooting range, but weare sideswiped when we bump into my aunt just outside the building’s door.
She gets out of the car, which has stopped at the curb, as we step into the sunlight. “Ah, here you are, Alejandro. I was just on my way to make the acquaintance of the lovely young lady your uncle told me about.”
I can recognize she is lying through her teeth. I am sure my uncle told her the truth about Maddy, and she is here to suss out if this woman is a danger to me.
Maddy doesn’t wait for an introduction. She steps forward with her hand already stretched out. “Hi there, I am Maddy. It's nice to meet you. Thank your husband for being so kind to me yesterday. It isn’t every day a stripper gets treated with decency.”
Is there no fucking filter on this woman?
I rub my forehead when I hear a soft bubbling laugh turn louder. “Oh, I like her, Alejandro. She is exactly what we need. New blood that isn’t afraid of anybody. My dear, why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? You can even bring Alejandro if you can’t shake him.”
She winks at Maddy, who eagerly accepts the invitation as she walks my aunt back to her car.
They talk quietly for a few moments more before she gets in and the car drives off.
“She is a delight, isn’t she?”
Maddy is back at my side, and I just shake my head at the phenomenon I just witnessed. “She doesn’t like any other women, so try not to get on her bad side.”
She looks at me pensively before she hooks her arm through mine and starts walking in the opposite direction of where we were heading. “Where are you going?”
Stopping, she poignantly looks down at her shorts and my T-shirt, which I lent her this morning. “Surely, you don’t expect meto go to dinner looking like this. And I could do with some new underwear too. These shorts are starting to chafe.”
I take her in properly for the first time and realize that I haven’t once thought about my reputation while being with her. It is as if all the constraints of my terrible trade have filtered into the background. But she is right. I still have a duty, and one of those duties is not to embarrass the family.
Taking her hand in mine and marveling at how right it feels, I walk her toward the shopping district.
It takes all the control I have to keep my hands to myself on the way to my uncle’s house.
He and my aunt live on a vast estate, but they have built each of my three cousins a house on the land. They live just far enough not to be a nuisance but still close enough to share family occasions, which they always include me in.
But not even the thought of family can distract me from the beautiful woman beside me. I took her to three boutiques and told them to give her whatever she wanted, plus a few extras, before I took her to one of my aunt’s salons to get herself spoiled.
The ladies sent me home and instructed me to return a few hours later, as per my aunt's instructions. And when I stepped into the salon, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
She was dressed in a blood-red silk halter-neck dress that draped over her body like sweet sin. The slit on the side reveals a little more than I would have liked, considering my ornery cousins, but pride fills my chest when I think about how this woman will be on my arm tonight.
