9. Emma #2
Dante’s expression softens, but only briefly.
“My sister will explain when you meet her. I suspect that will happen sooner than you think.”
He knows something I do not. The awareness should frighten me, but there is no threat in the way he speaks of his sister.
Still, I have spent too long trusting people who keep their reasons hidden.
“You protected me when you could,” I say. “I’m alive. That has to count for something.”
“You are generous.”
“No. I know what it costs when you let one mistake become the only thing you believe about yourself.”
His gaze sharpens as if he hears more in that sentence than I intended to give him.
I look past his shoulder.
“But please keep Liam safe.”
“I have people on him.”
Air finally reaches the bottom of my lungs.
“So does your boyfriend.”
“He isn’t my—” The denial dies before it is fully formed. “What do you mean?”
“Alex already had teams watching Liam before mine reached Austin.”
The music continues.
My feet move with his, but my body has had enough surprises for one night. God, my legs are useless today. I should not be vertical while talking to Dante.
“How long?”
“Long before you spoke to me. Hartley’s people have been covering both of you for some time. He increased the rotation after you were injured in Pinehaven.”
The parking lot after the town hall meeting.
Long before Dallas, the alley, or the night, I stood in Alex’s kitchen and offered him anything in exchange for Liam’s life.
“Rotating shifts?”
“Three-man teams. Professional, discreet and expensive.” Dante watches my face. “Liam is protected from both sides.”
My fingers tighten on his shoulder.
Alex had men around Liam before I begged him for protection.
He let me stand in front of him, terrified, and offer him everything I had left. He watched me reduce my life to a price he could name, knowing he had already given me the one thing I was bargaining for.
The realization hurts.
So does the hope buried underneath it.
Alex protected Liam without being asked. He did it discreetly and then buried the evidence beneath threats, rules, and a bargain designed to make me believe he had no mercy left.
My Alex is still in there.
The thought enters like a blade sliding between my ribs.
I hate how badly I want it to be true.
A dead man can be mourned. I spent ten years doing that. I do not know what to do with one who keeps appearing inside the man determined to punish me.
“Emma?”
Dante’s voice pulls me back.
I force my fingers to relax, smoothing the crease I left in his jacket.
“You didn’t know,” he says.
“No.”
Regret crosses his face. “Then I’m sorry I was the one who told you. It should have been him.”
“He’s complicated.”
“He’s an ass.”
A laugh punches out of me before I can stop it.
“That too.”
A hand lands on Dante’s shoulder.
The pressure is controlled, but the message is not.
Alex steps into our dance frame and forces it apart without causing enough of a scene to attract anyone beyond the closest couples.
He looks calm.
Only someone who knows him would notice the tension in his jaw or the way his gaze drops to Dante’s hand at my back before returning to his face.
Dante raises both hands.
“No need for violence. I was keeping your girl company.”
Alex’s eyes cut to me before they bore into Dante.
“We need to talk.”
His voice stays low, but the words carry the weight of an order.
Dante adjusts one cuff. “Best if Danny is there too.”
“He’s here.”
As if summoned, Danny appears through the crowd with a woman on his arm.
Dark curls. Brown eyes. A silver-white dress.
For a second, I cannot make the pieces fit together.
“Sofia?”
Her mouth falls open.
“Emma?”
She pulls away from Danny and catches both my hands.
“What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
“That was my question.”
Danny looks at Sofia. “Will you be all right alone for a few minutes?”
She rolls her eyes and links her arm through mine.
“I’m not alone. I have my bestie here.”
Alex tips his head toward Dante.
Dante gives Sofia and me a slight bow. “Ladies.” Seeing Danny out of flannel and in a crisp tuxedo, performing all the motions of a perfect gentleman, is jarring. I can still picture him tearing across the ranch after Duke, with Liam racing behind him.
The three men move away.
Alex pauses beside Frank, says something I cannot hear, and lifts two fingers. Within moments, Frank and several other guards spread out around us. They do not try to hide what they are doing. Anyone paying attention can see the security tightening.
Sofia tracks each one.
Then she turns on me.
“What is going on?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Is Alex your date?”
“No.”
She waits.
“Technically, yes, but not like that.”
Her eyes widen. “Are you dating your boss?”
One corner of my mouth lifts before I can stop it.
Sofia throws her head back and laughs.
The sound is too loud and too real for the polished room. Several people turn with disapproving expressions.
Danny stops walking.
He looks back at Sofia, and for one unguarded second, his entire face changes. His mouth almost curves before he catches himself and continues after Alex and Dante.
I watch him go while Sofia is still laughing beside me, completely unaware of the man who just looked at her like that.
“Stop laughing,” I mutter.
“I knew it.”
“There is nothing to know here.”
“I know your face. I have never seen you look like this, not even when Luis was following you around with those ridiculous puppy eyes.”
Her expression goes wistful, then turns a little sad.
“Sofia,” I say gently.
“What? I’m allowed to be disappointed. You would have made a wonderful sister-in-law.”
“I never saw him that way.”
“I see that now.” Her gaze moves far away. “You lost your heart long before you came to Pinehaven.”
My smile fades.
She says it lightly, but the truth lands too close, so I turn my thoughts back to Luis instead.
I have heard nothing from him since I blocked his number. Alex told me only that Luis had kept his side of our arrangement and expected me to keep mine.
I tighten my hand around Sofia’s forearm.
“How is he?”
“Free of the injunction. Some other fancy lawyers showed up and started blocking everything the first lot tried to do. Professional rivalry, apparently.”
She rolls her eyes. “I swear, if they wanted to have a dick-measuring contest, they could have done it without ruining everyone else’s lives. It turned into a battle over who could be the bigger snake in a suit.”
Alex.
Of course, it was Alex.
“He quit anyway,” Sofia adds. “Said he wants a change. Mamá has opinions. Carlos has even more opinions. Papá has none. And Luis is ignoring all of them.”
“He quit after they cleared him?”
“Yes. Apparently that makes sense inside his head.”
I hate that part of me is grateful to Alex. He caused the problem in the first place, but when I asked him to fix it, he did. He could have made things worse. Instead, he chose to undo some of the damage.
“He quit anyway,” Sofia adds. “Said he wanted a change. Mamá has opinions. Carlos has even more opinions. Papá has none, and Luis is ignoring all of them.”
“He quit after they cleared him?”
“Yes. Apparently that makes sense inside his head.”
“What is he planning to do now?”
“Who knows? He took Roman drinking one night, and the two of them came back with a shiny new motorcycle. Then Luis took off. No one has heard much from him in a week. He texts Maria now and then, but that’s about it.”
“And your Mamá?”
“Mad at Roman.”
I stare at her. “Your mother? Mad at Roman?”
Sofia snorts. “I know. Her precious son-in-law.”
“Exactly.”
Sofia smiles, but it fades as she looks away. “I think everyone should just give Luis some space. It can’t be easy when the career you built your whole life around gets turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Maybe he just needs time to figure out who he is without it.”
There is something in the way she says it that makes me look at her again.
That, at least, I understand.
And I have a feeling Sofia does too.
Sofia shakes her head, and just like that, a bright smile takes over her face.
I know that move. Classic Sofia. Shove the unpleasant thing into a corner and move on to something better.
“Want some good news?”
“Please.”
“Maria’s Kitchen is no longer crashing and burning.”
I laugh. “That is good news.”
“Fiona’s back. The family emergency is over, or at least she says it is. And Maria hired this incredible new sous chef. I swear, some of the things he makes are magic. You know I love food, but lately I’ve been having an actual affair with it.”
Relief loosens something in my chest. “So the restaurant’s okay?”
“Better. Not perfect, but better enough that Ana isn’t spending every spare hour there anymore.” Sofia takes a sip of champagne. “Maria threatened to put me in the kitchen once, and half the town almost organized a boycott.”
I laugh.
“That sounds like Pinehaven.”
“It was deeply insulting. I can cook.”
“You set fire to boiled eggs.”
“That happened once.”
“It happened twice.”
“The second time was the pot’s fault.”
The homesickness returns, but this time it comes with warmth.
Sofia studies me over the rim of her glass.
“Everyone back home used to think you and Luis would end up together.”
“There was never anything between us.”
“I get it. You said that already. Besides, Villain One has a much stronger hold on you than I realized.”
“Villain One?”
“Danny is Villain Two.”
“Right.”
“So who dumped whom?” she asks. “You or Alex?”
“Is it really that obvious?”
“The way you look at each other? There is enough history there to qualify for historic preservation funding.”
“History,” I say. “Yes. You could call it that.”
Sofia’s eyes narrow with interest.
I turn the attention back to her.
“What about you, Ms. ‘I Hate His Guts’? You arrived on Danny’s arm.”
“This is different.”
“Of course.”
“I’m here on business.”
“What business?”
“He wants me to become his town liaison while he runs roughshod over Pinehaven.”
“Why you?”
“Because he thinks showing me all his charitable art ventures will make me forget he is a billionaire circling my town with a shovel.”
“You agreed to come.”