Page 74 of Brutal Vows
“Yes, Mr. Quinn, I did.”
“What does it say?”
When he looks at me quizzically, I smile at him. “She’s too shy to tell me herself.”
He chuckles. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. It is a little awkward.”
“How so?”
“Anyone with the words ‘never again’ tattooed where a wedding ring would sit probably has some strong feelings about matrimony. You must’ve been very persuasive.”
Never again.
It hits me like a kick in the gut: a powerful urge to unalive her already-dead husband.
With a new sense of urgency, I ask, “What did she say to you about the ring?”
His smile is smug. “That it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen in her life.”
He whips out a business card from his suit pocket and writes something on the back. Then he slides it across the glass case toward me.
I pick it up, read the price of the red diamond, and almost laugh out loud.
Twenty million dollars.
Flipping over the card to read his name, I say, “Tell me, Lorenzo, if you were an eighteen-year-old girl, which of the pink ones would you like?”
He frowns in confusion. “Eighteen?”
“It’s a long story.”
On the drive back to the house, Reyna is silent.
She has an expression on her face that I’ve never seen before. It’s a mix of longing and loneliness, pain and sadness.
A kind of sadness that makes her look lost.
“You want to talk about it, viper?”
She glances at me, then turns away, shaking her head. “Talking never helps anything.”
“I know a few therapists who’d disagree with you.”
“You say that like you actually know therapists.”
“I do.”
I feel her attention sharpen, but she doesn’t look at me. “Personal friends of yours, or…?”
I shrug. “I went to counseling for a few years. Tried a few different ones.”
Now she does look at me, swinging her head around to stare at me in shock.“You?”
I grumble, “Don’t make it sound so bloody implausible.”
“Not implausible, impossible.”
“Why?”
