Page 36 of Filthy Dirty Dom

A warning.

His decision had been made. He was turning her offer down.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to focus on work. He took one more look at the video screens. Satisfied that all seemed well he exited the room and used his fingerprint to lock the biometric door. An hour later, he called Branden to give him update on some leads he’d been chasing down for him, including who the mysterious person was who’d had chocolates delivered to Cara, Branden’s fiancée over Christmas. They hadn’t been ordinary chocolates, but the same chocolates that Cara’s deceased father had given her every holiday, and given all the enemies Branden had, it was natural they take that as a potential threat until they discovered otherwise. It turned out the person was the same person who’d followed Cara in a grocery store and tried bribing the Duke family out of five hundred grand, only to fail to pick up the money when Branden’s mother, Bunny, had offered it up.

“Alex,” Branden said when he picked up the call. “Everything okay?”

Aside from the fact I ran into your sister in a sex club, watched her get off then got off to her on her knees in front of me before I fucked my fist and flogged myself at the same time?

Damn, he had to get that out of his head. He gave Branden the information he needed to, then asked about their friend, Logan, a cop who’d recently been badly injured while undercover and was now paralyzed from the waist down.

“He’s been tight-lipped, but from what Iris has told Cara, they’re struggling. Only natural. He’ll adjust. It helps that he has a woman he’s madly in love with and a baby on the way to give him the will to push himself. But it will be slow going to heal what that bullet and the beating did to his body.”

Immediately, images of bullets tearing into bodies—small bodies— filled Alex’s mind. His muscles tensed. His heartbeat increased. His breaths grew shallow. The sounds of a chopper’s blades echoed through his head, as did his screams of denial.

He closed his eyes, willing away the bloody images, then said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“I will.”

“Talk later,” he said, then ended the call.

He stood still for a moment, still fighting off the memories of the past before walking over to the map of the world that stretched the length of his office space. Markers indicated current geographic locations of his agents and clients. He slipped a finger over the Middle East, recalling his time in Afghanistan, then drew his finger to Italy and the monastery where Father Alessio lived.

Alex’s phone pinged and he pulled it out of his pocket to see a message from Leslie. When he read it, he frowned.

Leslie: How about we make a deal?

16

At Leslie’s text, Alex frowned. He hadn’t expected to hear from her, figuring she’d let him stew on her offer as long as possible. He especially hadn’t expected her to lead with this.

Alex: What kind of deal?

Leslie: What will it take for you to go to a Zumba class with me?

Alex barked out a laugh. He totally got what she was doing. Cutting the tension between them to communicate that even if he said no to her offer, they’d still be friends.

Friends.

He was starting to hate that word.

Alex: More money than even you or your family have.

Leslie: *Eye roll emoji*

Leslie: Lost cause?

Alex: Without a doubt.

Leslie: Fine. I won’t even try. Have you given what I offered any thought? Because no pressure, Alex. If it’s a no again, we’ll move on same as before.

Hours had gone by and Alex still hadn’t responded to her last text.

Leslie was taking that as a good sign because he hadn’t said no yet.

But he likely would. She couldn’t get her hopes up high.

In fact, she should text him again and tell him to pretend she’d never asked.