Page 5 of Reckless Woman

“Wrong.” She flashes me another grin. “I’m family, remember, and I just earned his respect.” She glances behind herself at an approaching Dante. “You don’t have to worry about the whole ‘days in the sun’ thing with me, Grayson,” she adds, patting my rigid bicep in a way that makes me want to ram my fist down her throat. “After today, I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter Three

Anna

“Irony is the most misquoted word in the English language,” declares Eve, tossing her magazine onto her swollen stomach and flexing her toes in the brilliant sunshine. “Most of the time it’s either coincidence, satire or bad luck.”

Stretching out on the sun lounger next to her, I fight the kind of laugh that threatens to dislodge my sunglasses from the bridge of my nose. “Isn’t it kind of ironic that you’ve used the word ‘misquoted’ for your outburst there, Miss Award Winning Reporter?”

A second later, the same magazine is being tossed at me.

“You always were a smart ass,” she says with a laugh, capturing the strands of her long, dark hair and twisting them up into a messy bun. “Tell me, how did you end up working for Rick again?”

“I worked in one of his bars, not for Rick directly,” I correct, shutting my eyes and allowing the heat of the day to soak into my skin. “How is he doing, anyway?”

“Happily corrupting every New York socialite under the age of twenty-five. Dante’s flying over to see him in a couple of days.”

“Is he taking you and Ella?”

“No, I’m too pregnant to fly now.” She pats her stomach with a pout. “My doctors say I could deliver any day, especially as Ella was two weeks early. Besides, I haven’t learned how to unpick the locks to my paradise, yet.”

I follow her gaze to a horizon of serene ocean and placid skies that paint the pretty bars of her jail cell. There’s only one way people come and go from this place and that’s with the Dark Overlord’s permission. Her husband is fanatical about his family’s safety, even at the risk of crushing the ones he loves.

My thoughts stray to an old farmhouse in Texas.

There are hidden chains in the most unlikely of places.

“Drink?” Eve reaches for the pitcher of iced water on the table between us.

“I’m good, thanks.” Rolling over onto my front, I sweep my long blonde hair over my shoulder to cover up a love bite and stifle a yawn. I hardly see Joseph during the day here, but from dusk until dawn he makes up for it. “Why are you hating so hard on ‘irony’ today, anyway?”

“Because I have a starring role in the most obvious example.” She shoots me a cryptic side-eye. “Andsometimesit gets a little overwhelming.”

“You and Dante,” I mutter.

“Me and Dante,” she confirms, her hand straying toward her stomach again. “The reporter who hates the narcotics trade and the not-so-former cartel boss.” She sighs and glances at the horizon again. “I always knew that love moves in mysterious ways, but I didn’t realize it dances rings around your decency and waltzes all over your ethics. I can’t excuse what he does, anymore than I can forgive the men he kills for the crimes thatthey’vecommitted. But with everything that’s happening in Colombia right now…” Her voice trails off, her next words eaten up with worry. “I thought the pact with Roman Peters would have focused that side of him more.”

“You hate that he’s resurrected his cartel,” I say, speaking the truth she’s struggling to admit.

I watch her gnawing on her lower lip.

“There’s a part of me that wishes those days were over for good, but his past is a story that will always bleed a narrative into our present.”

“If he really loved you, he’d walk away,” I say slyly, playing devil’s advocate with the devil’s wife.

“I don’t doubt his love, Anna.” She side-eyes me again with a frown. “And I know what you’re trying to do…I’ve come to terms with the two people I love most in this world despising each other.”

“I don’t despise his hospitality,” I say lightly. “And his kid is pretty cute.”

“You don’t despise his enforcer, either,” she teases. “How was Texas?”

“Hot.”

She quirks her eyebrows at me. “Hot, huh?” I must have blushed beneath my tan because the next thing I know she’s snaking those eyebrows sky-high. “I’d ask you for details if I didn’t think Dante would lose his shit over it.”

“Dante loses his shit over everything. The difference between Dante losing his shit and a normal man losing his shit is the body count.”

“Joseph’s not so different.”