Page 31 of Naughty and Nice
Standing, I met his gaze. “Horace was trying to get me to stay with Isabella in Mia’s bathroom. He’s her bodyguard. I understood. Emiliano would never forgive him if anything happened to Izzy. She needed to stay where she was safe. The women…they needed someone.”
Nick’s tenor slowed. “Did you say that no one would miss you?”
“I guess.” I shrugged. “I think,” I answered honestly. “It’s all a blur.”
Crimson seeped from Nick’s collar up his neck and into his cheeks. The vein from before was back on his forehead. His wide shoulders tensed as he balled his fingers to fists at his side. “You’re wrong.” His nostrils flared as he turned and disappeared into Mia’s home.
Unexpected tears filled my eyes. “Nick. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Nick.”
He didn’t turn around.
In that instant, I would have accepted his threat to my ass. Enduring his stare, one filled with disappointment, was more painful than anything I’d endured with Gerardo.
Was it because I hated my first husband?
Or more specifically, was it because I didn’t hate Nick?
And now he was gone.
Mia was at my side, reaching for my shoulders. “What’s happening?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I think I just ruined everything.”
She led me back to the table. “Honey, start over. Why is Nick so upset?”
Each time I woke during the night, I checked my phone for a message from Nick. I had a couple from Isabella and some from different residents but nothing from Nick. Giving up on sleep, I went downstairs, careful not to wake anyone. The only illumination were the colorful LED lights on the beautifully decorated tree. By the time the sun rose, I was seated in Mia’s kitchen at the breakfast counter with my third cup of coffee.
The house slowly came to life when Viviana and Silas joined me. Viviana and I spoke as she prepared for breakfast. Then she headed upstairs to help with Jorge.
My mind was filled with more questions than answers when Aléjandro, el Patrón, came down the stairs. He was wearing his customary black t-shirt and dark denim jeans. His boots on the tile clicked with his determined saunter as he entered the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee.
“Buenos días,” he said.
He seemed almost approachable, as if he weren’t fully in drug-lord mode yet.
Jutting his chin toward me, he gave a brief smile. “Gracias, for yesterday. I don’t want to think how Mia would’ve reacted if Cabezõn had gotten to the residents.”
My fingers wrapped around my warm mug, warding off the chill yesterday’s memories revived. I smiled at his deliberate omission of the word whores. “If the man who came into the lecture hall had found us” —I’d been wondering about this scenario all night— “Would he have killed us?”
Holding his coffee mug, el Patrón leaned his tall muscular body against the counter. “No sé. I can’t answer that for certain.”
“If the situation were reversed?”
“I don’t send soldiers to scare whores.”
There’s the derogatory term.
He pressed his lips together. “If it were reversed, if my soldiers found where Cabezõn housed his whores, I wouldn’t have them killed.”
“You wouldn’t?” Was my devotion to the women for nothing?
“I’d put them to work or give them to my soldiers.”
The coffee in my stomach soured. “Give them? They wouldn’t be yours to give.”
“Spoils of war.”
“That’s—that’s worse.”
