Chapter 9
I didn’t have to look back to know Cillian O’Leary’s eyes tracked me out of the pub.
That quiet, menacing gaze of his put all my senses on high alert.
With all his attention focused solely on me, after he made it clear with his radio silence over the years that I was never supposed to have it, a bolt of exhilaration zapped through me.
I bit my lip and sashayed my hips a little bit more than usual. I was going to flip the script on him.
For years, I steeled my spine against the whispers and jeers to prove to the French socialite society I was more than a jilted wife, that even if I couldn’t keep a husband, I was damn good at building and managing a business.
A little payback went a long way to soothe a bruised ego.
Let’s face it, his wed-and-dump act stomped on mine, then threw it to the dogs. Now it was my turn.
Once I walked two businesses down, the prickling on the back of my neck subsided. I smirked and ride-hailed a cab on my phone.
He wasn’t what I’d expected. Dangerous, controlling, definitely a little bit of a prick, but something in him simmered beneath the surface and bubbled through fractures in his placid facade.
Something was begging for a break from his routine.
If I dug my ballerina nails into the cracks and split them open, all his broken bits might just spill out.
From that point on, he would be putty in my hands. This was going to be fun.
I rang Erel as I strolled down the block with some added bounce to my steps.
“Is it done?” I asked in French the instant he picked up.
“You’re lucky Franc works fast. Confirmation just came in.”
Perfect, I knew he could get it done. My distant cousin was fantastic at his job. One of the best things my brother ever did after he took over as the ca?d of the C?te d’Azur milieu, besides marrying Tessa, was to take on the fidgety, skinny son of a second-removed great-uncle as our family hacker.
“Good, because I can promise you he’s about to try to look me up.”
Fellow pedestrians frowned at me, their heads turning to follow me as I passed.
“Damn foreigners,” one muttered to his companion.
For a moment, I considered going after them to ask directions in my strongest French accent to mess with them while I pinched their wallets for the fun of it, but I waved the thought off. I had bigger fish to fry.
“What did you do?” Erel asked.
“Aw, big grump, you worried about me?”
“You? Never.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I held my own against most of the men on my brother’s payroll in the De Villier estate’s boxing ring, having been trained in Krav Maga, Muay Thai, kickboxing, and other styles from a young age.
A woman couldn’t afford to be precious and innocent in our world.
Otherwise, the wolves descended and took advantage of every drop of blood their teeth could slobber over.
“So what’d you do?” Tessa’s voice perked up.
“I did what I do best. I worked him.”
“And he believed you?” she asked.
“Helps that I didn’t really lie. Might have to market him some of my side products to sell it though.”
I started making chemical agents to help out my brother’s hitman business years before he took over the mafia side, but at heart, I was a perfume girl through and through.
“Adrien won’t like it,” Erel grumbled as my ride rolled up.
“Good thing it’s not his business.”
I waved my arm to flag the driver down and glanced over my shoulder, in case someone was following me. It didn’t look like Cillian had sent a tail after me, but it was better to be safe than sorry, just in case.
“I’m taking a taxi. I’ll get off six crossroads down, two blocks over. Pick me up there.”
As planned, Erel and Tessa’s car idled where the cab dropped me off. Out of one vehicle and into another one. I slid into the front seat as Erel continued his current phone call.
“You could take the time off, mon ange. Come with us,” Erel said, his French accent thick.
Immediately, I knew who was on the other side of the line: my best friend. The lovey-dovey sweetness of their two-year long-distance relationship was adorably sickening.
“God, I love it when you call me that,” Maeve’s disembodied voice stated over the car’s speakers.
You and me both, I thought. What I wouldn’t give for a man to call me his angel, his love, his treasure, whatever, just randomly in conversation.
“But you know I can’t. We just broke ground on the new construction site. Can’t you stay longer? I’ll make it worth your while.”
He groaned. “You are killing me.”
My door clicked shut, and he put the car back in drive, heading for our hotel.
“Alizé, babe, that you?”
“It’s me.”
“Let him stay, will you? Pretty please, for me. I need to ride me my Frenchman. It’s been too long.
Don’t deprive me of a good dicking. Your girl needs it.
Bad.” I smothered down my laugh at Erel’s scratchy throat-clearing and pinkened cheeks.
“Just a couple of days, and then you can spirit him back to France.”
“You make it sound like I spend my free time cockblocking you.”
“If you say no, you definitely are.”
I chuckled and flipped down the sun visor to check my makeup. “We can’t stay this time—”
“Killjoy. You’re definitely enjoying this.”
“What? Me? Never.” I gasped in outrage with gusto. “Tell you what. We’ll come back. End of the week for me.”
“Quoi?” What? Erel asked. His head swiveled to me, then back at the road.
“Tessa,” I asked, clocking her reflection in the rearview mirror. “You’re staying in San Francisco for what? A day? Two?”
“Just for the visit.” The prison visit to her brother, which I now needed to be in on.
The timeline wasn’t surprising. She never stayed for these visits longer than half a day despite the long trips and jet lag. Considering how her father had sold her off into human trafficking right out of their San Francisco home, it made sense. At least the bastard was dead.
“Then back to France, yes?”
“Yes…” Now came Tessa’s hesitation because she knew me well enough to know I was leading her answers.
I’d tell her why soon, but for my plan to work, when I came back to Boston, she couldn’t come with me.
With the stark scarring around her bright-green eyes, it’d only be a matter of time before someone figured out that she was not only the sister of the imprisoned Californian Italian don and the wife of the French C?te d’Azur milieu, but also that I was her sister-in-law.
It was too early to give the game away just yet.
“The new school year is about to start,” Tessa supplied. This would make her third year studying at the Lyon National High Conservatory of Dance and Music toward her bachelor’s in violin.
“See, ma belle?” I told Maeve. “Erel will take Tessa back to France, meet back with me in California, then we’ll come right back to Boston. Meaning you two will have plenty of time for date nights.”
“What? For an extra three days? A week at most? Your trips here are never long.”
“This one will be…a little extended. I’ve got one hundred eighty days starting today to get divorced, and I’m going to make the best of it.” My B-1 business visa only allowed for a six-month stay in the States, since there was no way husband dearest was going to petition for my residency.
“What the hell are you talking about? What happened to ambushing him into signing the papers?”
“Plans change.”
“What?” Maeve shrieked.
“My same question,” Erel unhelpfully added, accent heavy, his eye roll the cherry on top.
“What do you mean plans change?” my best friend nearly growled.
“It was never going to work. Not with someone like Cillian O’Leary. I only needed one minute with him to figure that out. The guy is stubborn and hardheaded. He’s decided he needs to stay married, which means I need to convince him otherwise.”
“Money,” Erel guessed. “Always the biggest motivator.”
“Except he refused my offer to pay him off.”
“Then pride,” Erel said unhelpfully. I already guessed that much. “He still needs the funds. You want to divorce that bad? Find out why, buy the debt, and use that as leverage.”
Tessa squeezed my shoulder. “Adrien will help.”
“But where’s the fun in that for me?”
Where was the retribution for abandoning his wife for seven years?
For not caring what became of her? For refusing to break this contract years ago when my brother, as head of our mafia family, agreed I didn’t need to stay married?
For tanking my annulment request? For becoming one more person who made me feel small, while everyone around me found the love of their lives, someone they relied on, someone who adored them despite their faults and supported them in everything they did, when I had no one?
No, I didn’t want to make it that easy. Not anymore. I wanted to have some fun first.
“So what exactly is your plan now?” Maeve asked.
“I’m going to seduce him. I’m going to get my freak on with husband dearest—that’s how you say it, yes? Strange turn of phrase, you know that.”
“What?” Maeve exclaimed across the line.
Erel’s wide-eyed look of horror had me giggling.
“Why, you ask?”
“I did not,” he stated through gritted teeth.
“We didn’t,” Tessa affirmed.
“Ah, ah, ah.” I shook my finger at them. “You want to. You know you do.”
“I do.” I was surprised at how affronted Maeve sounded across the line.
Erel groaned a sigh. “Et merde, pourquoi?” Fuck it, why?
I grinned wide. “Because I want something out of this marriage before I divorce the shithead. He’s gotten nearly thirteen million out of my family so far, and he’s going to pay it back in orgasms.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, practically hyperventilating.
“Al, this is dangerous,” Maeve said softly.