Entrapment (Morelli Family 7.5)

Quirking a curious eyebrow, I reach for my own plate. “Unorthodox courting methods,” I offer, dryly.

She bites back a smile, nodding once. “Okay, I concede that point. But you said I’m the first…” Mia pauses awkwardly, trying to figure out how to word it again.

“You don’t have to tiptoe,” I assure her. “I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

“I don’t want to make it weird,” she insists.

“It’s already weird.”

“Fine, I don’t want to…” She rolls her eyes, as if even annoyed at herself, but she continues anyway. “I don’t want to make you feel bad.”

I offer her a faint smile. “You won’t.” That’s the single most ridiculous thing anyone has ever said to me given the circumstances. I know she avoids conflict, but Jesus Christ, where’s the line?

“Well, anyway, you indicated this isn’t your ordinary method of seduction.”

Damn, I can’t help smiling a little wider. “Am I seducing you, Mia?”

“I don’t know; are you?”

I expected her to blush and change the subject again, but her response doesn’t sound like a joke. It’s just like yesterday, when she was all but begging me to tell her what we’re doing here. I wish I knew what to tell her. Obviously I can’t tell her what the plan actually is, but my plan is holding less and less appeal. I think about this morning with the gun on the end table—did she even see it? Maybe she’s merely unobservant. Maybe she didn’t realize the gun was there. Here I am giving her credit, but maybe she just got lucky.

My gun is still on the bedside table. Before I can talk myself out of it, I get off the bed.

Mia sighs. “Fine, leave me hanging here in suspense again. Where are you going?”

I lower my plate to the surface, putting it down behind the gun. Since I move slowly, she has enough time to follow my movements. I know the moment her gaze hits my gun because her eyes widen and her expression freezes.

As if I didn’t notice, I tell her, “Forgot to wash my hands.”

Mia swallows, her gaze lingering on the gun for a second, then her gaze drops to the bedding. I don’t wait. I simply leave my plate and head for the bathroom.

Dread weighs on me, but I tell myself it’s for no reason. It’s not that I trust her, exactly, it’s just that she was struggling to even say something that might make me feel uncomfortable, so from that to trying to kill me is quite a leap.

The problem right now isn’t that I think Mia will be waiting on the other side of the door with my gun; it’s that if she is, I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to deal with her. I’m not done with her. If I walk back in the bedroom and she has my gun in her hands, I’m not sure that will change. Frankly, the thought of her sitting up in my bed, naked, struggling with whether or not she should try to defend herself against me, then deciding to try—well, the sort of punishment I want to dole out isn’t a bullet, to put it that way.

I brace my weight on the edge of the sink, bowing my head and trying to get my shit together. I’m not supposed to like this fucking girl. She’s a witness to Vince’s sloppy as fuck job. She’s a good person who can put Adrian at the scene of a crime.

She’s also the secret Vince kept from me. She’s supposed to be a fucking example I was making, not someone I want to keep.

I wash my hands, but the problem I really need to wash my hands of is sitting naked in my bed, and now I want to see if she’s eating breakfast or trying to escape.

I clear my expression and head through the bathroom door, back into my bedroom. My gaze immediately goes to Mia. She’s still on my bed, looking down at her lap. I move a little faster until I’m close enough to see what she’s looking down at.

Her breakfast.

She turns her head to look at me, offers a tiny smile, then looks back down at her plate. Her hair falls in her face. I raise my gaze to the bedside table and relief pours through me. She didn’t touch the gun. I know she saw it this time, so it wasn’t luck, it was a choice.

I feel a little lighter as I walk around the bed and retrieve my plate, reclaiming my spot on the bed beside her. “Probably shouldn’t have left that lying there, huh?” I murmur, as if just realizing I left the gun out. I could let it go, but I want an explanation.

“Your breakfast?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. “I have my own; I don’t have to steal yours.”