“She’s coming around a lot more lately.”
Eyes widening, he says, “Because of Meg. That’s Meg’s doing, not mine.”
“Meg trusts you, you know.”
He looks at me the way I usually look at him. It would amuse me, his lack of humor, if not for all the thoughts brewing in my mind right now.
Since I’m not going to get anything else out of him, I turn to head out of his bedroom.
“You came here just for that?” he asks.
“No, I’m going to the surveillance room. Couldn’t sleep. Work to do.”
—
I don’t expect to see Mateo until much later, but he comes to the surveillance room with wet hair an hour later. He comes with two cups of coffee, passing one to me.
“Thanks,” I murmur, lifting the mug to take a drink.
“What’s going on?” he asks, flicking a glance at the screen I’m viewing. It’s everybody having drinks in his study, the night before Meg was shot.
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Just couldn’t sleep, figured I might as well do something.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
I glance up at him warily, but don’t answer.
“You treat her like she’s your sister, you know,” he remarks.
I don’t respond, turning my attention to the screen so he’ll see that I’m ignoring him and leave.
“She’s never going to fuck you if you’re treating her like a sister,” he continues.
“I don’t need advice on how to get laid, thank you very much.”
He takes a sip of his coffee, but seems to reject my assertion. “You need to start touching her. The whole night you never touched her once. Light, easy touches—her shoulder, her wrist, her arm, her leg, her hip, her back, whatever you can touch, innocent as can be, but you need to make contact.”
“I don’t need your advice, Mateo,” I inform him, still watching the screen.
“Just trying to help,” he says, shrugging.
“Don’t need your help,” I reply evenly.
“You’re being stubborn.”
I give him a sideways glare.
His eyebrows rise and he shakes his head. “Fine, fine. Not like I have experience here or anything.”
“I don’t want to appeal to her on the same level you do. I’m not you. I don’t want to be. I will foster something healthy with her, or I’ll foster nothing and kick her out of the nest once she’s recovered. I’m not taking advantage of her. I’m not you.”
He shakes his head, sighing as he turns to leave. “Always doing things the hard way.”
I roll my eyes and rewind the damn tape. I’ve been staring at it, trying to ignore him, but he’s aggravated me and I don’t want to risk missing anything.
—
I’m supposed to go to Saturday night dinner this week to welcome Colin into the fold as Meg’s new bodyguard, but it only takes five minutes with him and Cherie to make me regret that recommendation. I want to stay and talk to Mateo about it after, but I finally get some good information about Castellanos. More specifically, where he’s supposed to be this coming week.
That’s a little more pressing than dealing with McGregor.
The rest of the night is gone before I know it, calling around to set up meetings, making plans to move against Castellanos.
Problem is, I haven’t had a chance to verify my suspicions after reviewing the security tapes and looking into who might’ve been behind Meg’s shooting. Bigger problem is, I just don’t want to. So instead I make plans without them, and don’t even tell Mateo, that way he won’t accidentally share the information with the wrong people.
If I can take out Castellanos on a small scale op like this, I may be able to navigate around outright war. No one can find Salvatore at this point, but if we strike down his old man and cease fire, maybe he’ll resurface. Mateo and I have talked a little bit about this, but now he’s more reluctant to make any kind of peace, after Salvatore set him up to think he was banging Meg. I’d like to remind Mateo he doesn’t hold grudges, but with Meg still wounded and everything so fresh, he’s not listening.
My to-do list somehow grows longer with each thing I check off.
Normally I join Mateo in his study for pre-dinner drinks, but tonight I follow Elise to the kitchen with the ladies. Mia and Meg are shoulder to shoulder, chatting as they prep food, but Elise heads where I want to go—to Cherie.
After the customary greetings, Elise asks what she can help with and gets to work setting the table. Me, I linger by the stove, leaning against the counter by Cherie.
Flashing me a smile once Elise is gone, she says, “So, how are you doing? I never get to talk to you anymore.”
“I’m good.”
“How’s freedom?” she asks lightly.
“Small,” I tell her.
She grabs a salt shaker and dumps some in her pot. “Well, it would probably be bigger if you wouldn’t have run right back to Mateo’s rescue,” she points out.