He wanted nothing more than to roll against her and let her hand remain on his cheek, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Forcing himself to hide the reaction, he pushed away from her instead, rolling to sit on the edge of the bed, so there were still a few inches between them. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes widened the surprise. “Sorry? For what?”
“Last night. I had no right, and I shouldn’t have done that.”
She rolled her eyes, her exasperation clear. “I wanted you to do that, Patrick. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have sent you the email about my listing. I would have just done it behind your back if I’d had no interest in you, and if I’d really wanted to sell my virginity to some stranger for money.”
His lips tightened, and he gave her a single nod. “Either way, it was the wrong thing to do. I’ve taken something from you that you can’t get back now, something that you should have saved for your husband or the man you love.”
She tipped her head sideways to look at him, her eyes full of wisdom and a touch of compassion. “Don’t you get it?”
He lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. “Get what?
“I did give it to someone I love. I love you, Patrick, and I have since before I even turned eighteen. I wanted this, I wanted you, and I’m not sorry about any of it.”
He exhaled regularly, his eyes dancing away from hers. “You can’t mean that. You’re so young—”
“I’m not too young to know how I feel,” she said firmly, her tone brooking no argument. “I love you, Patrick. And too bad if it freaks you out, because I’m still going to say it.”
Patrick stared at her for a moment as his brain struggled to catch up. Finally, he said, “You can’t be with me.”
She let out a groan of exasperation. “Shouldn’t it be my choice?”
He shook his head, grimly determined not to give in. “There’s a lot you don’t know, the kinds of things I can’t tell you. Just know you’re safer and better off without me.”
She surprised him by laughing. It was more of a giggle really. “If you’re referring to your business,” She used finger quotes as she said business, “I already know. I figured out a long time ago you and my dad were in to shady things, and since you’re in charge, it stands to reason it’s not just some little crime ring. I always assumed you were in the mafia.”
He stiffened and jerked with surprise, clearly not having expected her to fit together small pieces to form a picture that was at least mostly right. “Who told you?”
She shook her head. “No one had to tell me. I lived with both of you guys long enough—first my dad and then you for a while—to realize what was going on. I know, and I don’t care.”
Patrick scoffed. “Oh, you don’t care? It doesn’t bother you that I sell guns or kill people?”
She hesitated, her eyes betraying her uncertainty even though her tone was the exact opposite. “I’ve accepted what you are, and I’m willing to live with it without any complaint if it means I can keep you.”
His eyes narrowed, and he decided a demonstration was the only way to get through to her. “Get dressed, honey. You’re going to come along and see just what I do for a living. It’s take your lover to work day, though I don’t think you’ll last more than an hour.”
With a mutinous set of her lips, she nodded and slid from the bed, making no effort to hide her nudity. She felt a little self-conscious with his eyes on her, but it wasn’t anything that made her feel uncomfortable. If anything, it sent her libido into overdrive, to know he could see every motion of her hips, every gentle sway of her breasts, and the way her taut buttocks flexed as she walked. “What should I wear?”
“Anything you don’t mind getting blood on, sweetheart.” Without another word, he rolled from her bed and strode from her room, not even bothering to grab his clothes in the process.
She bit back a giggle as she imagined him striding naked through the hallway, giving the staff something to discuss in discreet tones after dinner. Had he even realized he had fled without his underpants?
That thought did make her giggle, and she indulged for a long moment before meeting her eyes in the mirror. Nerves brought a lump to her throat, and she swallowed thickly in an attempt to clear it. Whatever he had in mind for her, she didn’t think it would be pleasant. He was determined to drive her away, so he was likely to show her the worst side of him today. She had to keep that in mind, no matter what, and remember the best side of him too. No one was going to take him away from her, not even Patrick himself.
Chapter Six
Lauren winced as Patrick’s fist struck the flesh of the man Jake and Isaac held between them. She tried not to show her reaction, but she still couldn’t help flinching at the impact. Her moderate reaction was nothing compared to the one on the receiving end of the punch, and the man groaned and pleaded for mercy.
“Mercy? There is no mercy in our business, Franklin. You deliver what you say you’re going to deliver, and you keep your word. You sure as fuck don’t skim profits off the top.” He punctuated his words with more fists flying to the man’s solar plexus.
“I’ll pay you back, boss. Double.” After Patrick nailed him with a right hook to the jaw, his voice sounded different, likely from a broken jaw. “Triple,” he said with obvious desperation.
Patrick hit him a few more times without responding. When the man could no longer stand at all on his own, with just Jake and Isaac holding him up completely, Patrick gestured for them to let him go. The other man fell to the floor, and Patrick knelt down, grasping a handful of his hair to lift the man’s head up to look into his eyes. “Four times the amount. You have it to me in three days, and then you get the fuck out of my city and never come back. You renege, you come back, or you don’t leave, and I will shoot you myself. Do you understand?”
The other man, though obviously in incredible pain, nodded emphatically. “I got it, boss. Thank you.” He darted a look at Lauren, who stood in the corner with her arms crossed over her chest, struggling to filter any reaction from her expression.
This side of Patrick was brutal, and it scared her. She’d known in an abstract way what he did, but seeing it—and she suspected he was showing her the worst sides possible, because she couldn’t imagine it getting much worse short of killing someone—brought it home. The reality was being with Patrick meant being with a mob boss. It meant accepting what he did for a living, and what he did to other people. She was still resolved to be with him, but her confidence in accepting his illegal activities was a bit shakier than it had been.
Patrick and his bodyguards walked away from the other man, and she startled visibly when she realized they were moving onward. She walked past the other man lying on the floor, shooting him a look of pity as she stepped over him and hurried to catch up with Patrick and the other two men.
“So, princess, do you like what you’ve seen? Are you still okay with my line of work now?” he asked with a sharp edge of sarcasm.
“You haven’t shocked me, if that’s what you mean. I figured you were going to do your worst today, and it wasn’t as bad as I expected.”
His mouth tightened, and he seemed to take her words as a personal challenge. “Just wait, honey. Just wait.”
His words were ominous, and her heart felt heavy as she followed him to the SUV, hoping and praying they were headed home to his house. Instead, they turned the opposite direction, and she knew the day wasn’t over yet.
They drew to a halt outside a seedy-looking warehouse, and her eyes widened with surprise when all three men pulled out their guns to check their ammunition levels before closing them with a click. Patrick handed out silencers, and they screwed them on the barrel of their guns before they all set out. Her mouth was dry as she slid nearer Patrick, who stood with the door open, clearly waiting for her to his exit. “Is it safe for me to go in there without a gun?”
He shrugged. “You’ll be fine. We’re all armed.”
“I do know how to use a gun, you know?” Sh
e said it as she slid across the seat and dropped down by his side, deliberately pressing close against him as she did so, so that each inch of her body rubbed against his while she slid slowly from the leather, until her sneakered feet were on the rough asphalt. It had seen better days, just like the building it surrounded.
“Where’d you learn how to shoot?” He took her hand casually in his, as though they were going for ice cream or about to see a movie rather than handle whatever violent business was next on his agenda.
“My dad taught me. It was just one of our things we did together.” Except for the last few months before he’d been shot, when he had slowly and almost shyly introduced her to his girlfriend, and she had joined them occasionally at the shooting range.
She had to blink back tears as a wave of fondness swept over her, memories of all the time she’d spent with her father crowding her mind for a brief second. She had unashamedly been a daddy’s girl, likely because there had been no other family, but also because her father had doted on her.
Even when he brought around the first—and only—girlfriend he’d ever introduced her to, she’d had no doubt she was still the most important person in his world, and she felt that way even now. It was a good feeling, though she would have given anything to have her father beside her, instead of being left with nothing but nostalgic memories.
They were quiet as they entered the warehouse, so she remained quiet too. She was thankful to be wearing tennis shoes as they moved across the concrete, because heels would have clacked loudly enough to announce their presence. She had a feeling they were trying to catch someone unawares.
That someone turned out to be a skinny guy with a bald head and an impressive mustache waxed within an inch of its life. The man took one look at Patrick and his crew, and he started wailing and muttering in Spanish.
When he would have run for it, Jake and Isaac grabbed the man and forced him to his knees. Patrick walked over to him, his gun in hand. “Franklin sold you out, Jorge. I know all about your little deal now. You thought you could steal from me? Skim profits? Take money out of my pocket?” He jabbed the barrel of his gun into the other man’s forehead, the silencer pressing deeply enough to make the skin around it turn white. “You thought wrong.”
“Please, Mr. Murphy. I’ll pay you back.”
Patrick scoffed. “I’ve already agreed to one deal today, with Franklin. He’s going to pay quadruple before he gets the fuck out of Dodge. That was my one and only act of mercy today, Jorge.”
“I’ll pay you back quadruple too, boss.”
Patrick shook his head, his expression impassive. “No, you were the mastermind. That means you get to be the example. I won’t have my people fucking me. You don’t steal from the Murphy family and live to tell about it.”
Lauren froze with shock as Patrick pulled the trigger, looking completely calm that he had just taken a life as the other man slumped to the cement floor, his blood forming a large pool around him in seconds. She pressed her back deeper to the wall, feeling the urge to run from him as he neared her. Patrick stalked toward her with the easy grace of a panther, and she was feeling a bit like a lame duck. Easy prey. She knew she wasn’t doing a good job of disguising the horror in her eyes when he looked into them, his expression cool and unchanged.
“Now that you’ve seen reality, do you still want me, sweetheart? Do you still want to be mine?” He seemed to find the idea laughable.
She pressed a hand to her mouth, attempting to stifle a sob. She had no answer for him, and she couldn’t think straight at the moment. Knowing what he did and seeing it were two different things, and for the first time, she doubted she could find a place with Patrick, not at all certain she could embrace the murderer alongside the man.
* * *
They returned to his house in silence, and he wanted to feel a smug sense of satisfaction at having gotten through to her. Instead, he just felt hollow and empty inside. He’d shown her the worst of him now, and he knew she would be leaving him. It was what he’d wanted, and it was for the best, but it still made his heart feel like it was being ripped in two.
His chest physically ached, and the temptation of having her so close had him balling his hands into fists on his legs to keep from reaching out for her. She wouldn’t welcome his touch. There was blood on his hands. Not literal blood, because he had not gotten close enough to Jorge to spatter the other man’s brains on him, but now she knew. She would look at his hands and always see the red staining them. He had driven her away, just as he had planned.
Once back at the house, he didn’t even look at her as he slipped from the car. Once he was certain she had exited too, he strode inside. She remained a couple of steps behind him, and he split off, heading straight toward his study as she ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He heard her harsh breathing and knew she was on the edge of tears. She deserved privacy to bawl her eyes out and come to terms with what she had seen.
Strangely, he wasn’t at all afraid she’d go to the police or betray him. He knew she cared about him too much to do that. She might even love him as she claimed, but it wasn’t enough to overcome what he did for a living. It certainly wasn’t enough to overcome the huge secret between them. Even the deepest love wouldn’t be able to overcome the reality that her father’s blood was on his hands.
In fact, he had killed Jorge in much the same manner as he had taken out Howie, and he wasn’t certain if it had been coincidental, or if it had been his subconscious at work, spurring him to re-create the gruesome scene for his love. It was as close as he could ever get to confessing to what he had done.
With her far away from him, giving her a chance at a normal life without the Irish Mafia and without the darkness in him, he wouldn’t be as tempted to tell her the truth, even if he ever felt the slightest niggle to do so. It would also mean she’d be far less likely to ever find out for herself, though he didn’t know who would tell her.
After an hour, he figured he had given her enough time to compose herself and find a way to tell him she no longer wanted to be with him. He double-checked her plane ticket for London, reconfirming she would fly out the next morning at eleven a.m. His heart broke as he saw the itinerary in black and white on his computer screen, but he pushed that reaction down deep, knowing it was for the best. He was trying to protect her as much as he was protecting his own heart.
He walked up the stairs and tapped not too lightly on her door, but this time waiting for permission to enter. When she called out for him to come in, her voice was stronger than he had expected.
He opened the door and slipped across the threshold, closing it quietly behind him. He didn’t bother to engage the lock, not expecting to be there very long, certainly not long enough for anyone to disturb them. “Your flight leaves tomorrow morning.”
She walked toward him, a fierce scowl on her face. “What flight?”
“Your flight to London. Your apartment’s still waiting, the internship is yours if you want it. Blow it off if you don’t, because it doesn’t matter. I set up a bank account for you, and you’re all set. You can do anything you want.”
She shook her head. “You’re still trying to get rid of me?”
He let out a harsh bark of laughter. “I figured you’d be running for the door by now, Lauren.”
She walked the rest of the way toward him, bridging the distance separating them to stop and stand in front of him. Her chin angled slightly, and she stared at him with an air of challenge. “You don’t scare me, Patrick.”
He glared down at her. “You’re lying. I saw the look on your face when I killed that guy.”
She didn’t bother to hide a grimace of disgust. “It was awful. It is the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen, and I hated that you did it, but I didn’t hate you. I love you, Patrick. That hasn’t changed.”
A sense of defeat was trying to rise in him, and even more disconcerting was a flutter of optimism. He squashed that ruthlessly, not wanting to hope for anythin
g. He couldn’t hope for her to stay, because it would be completely unfair to her. “You don’t belong in this life, Lauren. You’re better than this. Better than me.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not leaving you.”
He growled at her, anger rising as she just grew more stubborn. “Yes, you are. You have to. If you don’t want to go to London, pick anywhere else, and I’ll buy you a ticket. You just have to go away now.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, shaking her head deliberately. “I’m not going anywhere, Patrick. You can kick me out of your house, but you can’t force me to leave the city.” She leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “Besides, what about the baby?”
He stiffened, staring at her in shock. “What baby?”
Lauren shrugged, looking unconcerned. “Neither one of us thought to use protection last night, did we? I could be carrying your child right now, Patrick. Do you really want me to go away? You want to send us away? Do you really want me to raise your son without you?”
He closed his eyes, a wave of dizziness sweeping through him, and even he couldn’t identify it fully as defeat or victory. He had a perfect reason to keep her, and he shouldn’t embrace it, but he did. “You’re not going anywhere.” He made the dictate with his eyes wide open, his gaze locked on hers. “No way in hell are you leaving with that between us. If my baby’s inside you, my ring is going on your finger, and you’re taking my name.”
She licked her lips, looking eager. “And if it’s not inside me? Do I still get the ring and the name?”
Reading the open vulnerability in her expression was what really broke down the last of his barriers, and he gave in with a sigh of defeat. When she learned the truth, if she ever did, she might hate him, but she would still be his by that point. He couldn’t imagine letting her go. The epiphany struck him suddenly. She wasn’t safe with him, but he couldn’t live without her. “Yes, you can have it all.”
MAFIA: Dark Romance Collection Page 42