Right now, he didn’t know who he was angry with the most. Himself for having succumbed to Carla’s beauty and feistiness. Or Carla for enticing him into wanting to possess that feistiness for himself.
She was the first woman he’d been attracted to in a very long time. Open and honest, he had thought, to a degree her fearless bluntness made him laugh. Her beauty, that glossy dark hair and deep brown eyes, along with her curvy figure aroused him to a degree he’d thought of little else but her for weeks now.
Yesterday, she’d seemed to return that attraction, even if somewhat hesitantly. A reluctance, Leon freely acknowledged, which had only increased his desire for her. She’d made love to him this morning as if she meant it. Had him completely at her mercy, with his cock in her mouth and his balls in her hands.
Why the hell hadn’t she found a way to kill him there and then?
He wouldn’t have fought her, and it would have been a lot less painful than the feeling of betrayal that had been eating away inside him since he spoke to Benito Calabro and realized Carla had to be the other man’s accomplice rather than his victim.
An accomplice who was now also destined to die at the hands of the son of a bitch who had ordered Leon’s death.
His jaw tensed. “If you tell me who your employer is, I’ll do everything I can to protect you from him.”
“And who will protect me from you? What do you mean, my employer?” She gave a shake of her head. “I manage a bookshop. You know that.”
“With a sideline in murder, it seems,” Leon bit out. “I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you and your boyfriend were paid well for killing me before the deed was done, and that you’ve already enjoyed spending some of the money. Because I assure you, this will be the last time either of you attempt anything like that again.”
She recoiled. “You really do think I planned this with Benny? That what happened last night between the two of us… That I… That this morning—”
“This morning was mainly you, if you remember,” Leon taunted. “On your knees, sucking my cock.”
The inadvisability of swimming after being shot in the temple the night before was rapidly catching up with Carla. The floor now felt as if it was rocking beneath her feet, and her surroundings, including Leon, were starting to fade in and out of her blurred vision.
“I suggest you don’t faint again,” he drawled. “I feel absolutely no inclination to catch you this time.”
“I’m not going to faint,” she defended as she straightened, utterly determined, in the face of Leon’s hard mockery, that she would remain on her feet.
She now knew the reason for Leon’s initial coldness was because he believed she’d plotted and planned his assassination with Benny.
As to why Benny had become mixed up in something like this, she had no idea.
Not that it mattered. Benny had obviously tried to kill Leon, and now Leon believed she was guilty by association.
It was like something out of a very bad gangster movie.
Obviously, one in which only she believed in her own innocence.
“I’m not going to faint,” she repeated firmly. “It’s true.” She gave Leon a scathing glance when she heard him draw in a sharp breath. “It’s true that I do know Benny,” she dryly finished the sentence. “I was once engaged to marry him.”
Leon’s eyes narrowed. “Once?”
“Yes,” she stated flatly. “You can believe what you want, say what you want, but I hadn’t seen Benny for over a year until yesterday. Not since the day I found him in bed with another woman just weeks before our wedding. I threw his engagement ring at him and told him to get out, and I haven’t seen him since.” Carla sighed heavily. “I have no idea what I was thinking in the first place. I would have become Carla Calabro, for goodness’ sake,” she muttered. “But I honestly have no idea what he’s doing mixed up with the people who’re trying to kill you.”
Could Leon believe her?
Dare he believe her?
“News flash, Leon: I really don’t care whether you can or dare believe me.” Carla’s flat dismissal told Leon that he must have spoken those words out loud. “Second news flash. I know I wasn’t involved in last night’s shooting and someone’s plot to kill you. I suggest you go and talk to Benny again—before your men make it so that he can’t answer—and ask him the questions you’ve just asked me. I have absolutely no doubts that he will confirm everything I’ve just told you.”
“That doesn’t mean those answers weren’t already prearranged between the two of you for just this occurrence.”
Carla’s pitying look was enough to make Leon’s flesh crawl. “I would really hate to be you, suspicious of everyone and trusting no one.”
“This situation proves I’m right to have those suspicions.”
“But not the ones you have about me,” she scorned. “I have no desire or interest in killing you myself or assisting anyone else in doing so. After today, I also have absolutely no desire to ever want to see you again. But don’t mistake that for me having murderous feelings toward you. It’s simply that I have no interest in spending any more time with your distrustful arse. Now, I’d like you to leave.”
The conviction in her tone was enough to create a pocket of self-doubt inside Leon.
He’d been consumed by an icy rage when he left the warehouse earlier, intent only on confronting Carla with what he’d believed was her involvement in the plot to kill him.
But had Benito Calabro ever actually said that?
Leon hadn’t stayed around to listen to anything more the younger man had to say after Calabro admitted to knowing Carla and being concerned she’d survived the shooting. At no time had Calabro said she was in cahoots with him in trying
