“We can handle that.”
“Now, on the money side of things.”
Valeria tuned their conversation out. What did it matter? She concluded that anyone working with Jorge, or the cartel, was likely no fucking better than him at the end of the day.
Did they understand how the family built the cartel?
How they became so strong?
On the backs of the weak and the ignorant, breaking down a country’s justice, legal, and political systems piece by piece until nothing was left but corruption. With the blood of innocents, spilled across crate after crate of every shipment of cocaine that crossed the borders.
There was nothing good here.
Even thinking these Canadians couldn’t be any better or worse than her husband and his family, her gaze still drifted to the younger of the two.
Chris.
She didn’t understand why, but she enjoyed looking at him, even if she had no business doing it, and that would be a dangerous game for her to play. He was just another good-looking man, nothing special, right? He’d barely spoken two words to her, so she didn’t need to be staring at him, not like she might want to know more about him. She didn’t get curious about men, not when she had neither the time, the give a damn, nor the ability to do something with it.
Valeria was going crazy.
Yet, as she stared across the room from her hidden position in the shadows of the doorway, it seemed Chris recognized someone was looking at him. His attention left the conversation, and his gaze drifted upward, finding the spot where Valeria hid, watching him and the others. She stiffened, her heart picking up pace with its beats, as his stare lingered her way. A heat danced over her skin when those thin lips of his twitched before curving into a sensual smile.
Did he see her?
“Careful,” a soft voice said behind her.
Valeria jerked in her heels. “Jesus, Abril. Make a noise.”
Her sister-in-law laughed under her breath, a single dark eyebrow lifting in what seemed like a challenge. “Like you’re doing?”
“Well ...”
She had a point.
Abril stepped in beside Valeria in the shadows but didn’t glance her way. Instead, she stared across the room, looking at the men, and specifically, the one man who still had his attention focused in their direction.
“Don’t let Jorge see you staring at one of his new friends,” Abril said under her breath, “lest he get in his feelings about it, and wonder if something is going on, sí?”
“What might go on?”
“Nothing. He only needs to think there is. We both know what happens then, Val.”
Right.
Valeria stepped back from the entryway, needing five minutes to breathe alone, and far away from her confusion. “Tell Jorge I wanted to take a walk outside—it’s hot in here, and I’m not feeling well.”
She might as well take the chance to get away even if her husband would come looking for her soon enough. He always did; it was one thing she counted on with Jorge although she wished he would find someone else to focus his attention on.
Well, he did that, too.
Any woman pretty enough he wanted to stick his dick in, he did exactly that. Not that Valeria complained. If he fucked someone else, then he wasn’t raping her night after night.
Win some, lose some.
“Tell him for me, if he asks,” she said again.
Abril nodded. “Sure.”
• • •
Valeria sensed the presence join her on the back stairs of the mansion before he even said a word. She hadn’t heard him open the door, or his steps as he came to stand next to her while she stared up at the stars dotting the inky sky, but she felt him.
Somehow.
“Christopher,” she said, not unkindly.
“I prefer Chris,” he returned.
Valeria did her best to keep her gaze on the sky overhead, and not the handsome man next to her. She wasn’t sure why he had come out here. Had he seen her in the shadows and followed her?
If so, what did that mean?
Nothing decent, she imagined. Her heart stuttered at the idea, and she liked it too much. Not good.
“Care to take a walk?” he asked.
Valeria looked at him then, surprised at his offer. Earlier, when they met, and even at dinner, she hadn’t spoken more than a few careful sentences to him. It wouldn’t be enough for him to assume they were friendly, or otherwise. And yet, he smiled at her as though he already had her answer.
“As long as it’s where the guards can see,” she finally replied.
Chris nodded, peering around to survey the grounds where they could be seen. His gaze lingered on the walkway around the pool for a second, and then two. “Sure. How about around the pool?”
Was that a walk, then?
What did it matter?
“Sure,” she said.
Chris remained quiet as they strolled down the pathway and stayed alongside the pool. Valeria noticed the way he continued to glance towards the calm water at the surface, but not in a way that said he cared for the pool.
“Swimming isn’t your thing?” she dared to ask.
His head snapped in her direction. “Pardon?”
“You stare at the water like it might bite you.”
She didn’t miss the way his throat jumped at her statement, or how his Adam’s apple bobbed reflexively.
“I almost drowned as a child,” he murmured, his tone terse, “and it’s followed me throughout my life. Water makes me nervous, that’s all. Nonsensical, considering I can swim, but I swear I can taste the water in my lungs when I’m close enough.”
Huh.
She wouldn’t have guessed that.
“I’m sorry that happened,” she whispered.
Chris shrugged and smiled again. “A long time ago, I suppose.”
And yet, she bet it seemed like yesterday to him. Because he trusted her with the truth, Valeria would never breathe a word about it to anyone else.
Everyone needed their secrets, no?
That little detail about Chris made Valeria take a second glance at him, not that she needed to be doing that at all. Still, it made him seem different to her and almost easier to ignore the fact he was here to do business with her husband.
Their conversation during the walk around the pool stayed on safe topics, and she still looked for the guards to make sure they kept an eye on her. That way, later when Jorge no doubt asked where she left to, he would confirm nothing nefarious had been going on when his back was turned.
The paranoid bastard.
Although, Chris kept a distance between them. He didn’t get too close to Valeria throughout their stroll, and his hands remained clasped at his back while he did his best to ignore the pool beside them.
“Do you like it here?” he asked.
Random, she thought.
“What do you mean?”
Chris shrugged under the nice fit of his suit jacket. “Here, Mexico. Being the wife of a cartel leader, tucked away from the rest of the world, you know? All these beautiful things surrounding you, and you must have status in your position. Do you like it?”
Not at all.
Not one fucking bit.
Valeria asked for none of those things, and instead, they forced it upon her regardless if she wanted them. When she made it clear, this was not the life for her, she faced the wrath of a man she didn’t think was worthy enough to kiss her shoes.