Pops had known how much I despised the man and always had. That didn’t make Edwardo bad for business, just that I knew when it was time to keep my distance. He had a tendency to erase what little patience I had.
“Trouble in paradise?” Sierra’s lilting voice held the same air of repulsion as before, yet the glint in her eyes told an entirely different story. She’d shifted away from fearing me to growing more curious as to why we had such a strong connection. If I knew, I’d tell her. There was no feasible explanation.
“Business. Come and sit.”
She still had a tentative look on her face, but she did as I asked, but not without hesitating for a few seconds as she stared at the table.
I refilled her glass, shoving it in her direction. She returned the favor, pushing it away instantly.
“Take the drink, Sierra.”
“I need water after you drugged me, not alcohol.”
Sighing, I reached into the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle. She was right. Given the dosage I’d used, she would be partially dehydrated. “Drink both. Humor me.”
“If you insist.”
I waited until she unscrewed the cap, drinking enough to satisfy me. “You’re a tough lady, Sierra, much more so than you give off while hiding behind a counter.”
“I’ve never hidden a day in my life,” she retorted.
“Then what have you been doing in the four years since your fiancé’s accident?”
She opened her mouth to issue another diatribe of hatred then looked away. “Working on growing my business. Any good businessperson will tell you that in the first years, you need to be diligent about your work ethic, ignoring your personal life. But you wouldn’t understand that. Would you? My guess is you’ve never really worked a day in your life, other than pulling the trigger of a gun perhaps.”
The woman didn’t mince words. I admired that more than I cared to tell her.
“We all do what’s necessary in live to ensure our future. Don’t we, Sierra?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I yanked out one of the other chairs, placing my foot on the rung before leaning over. “It means that I find it curious you act as if you didn’t know what your fiancé was involved in, yet you happily took his money to expand your business. If my intel is correct, you didn’t wait two months after his untimely death before hiring a contractor.”
Her eyes opened wide and in a split second, she tossed the contents of the glass in my face, standing and slamming her palm on the table. “How fucking dare you. You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you care about. Do you? I doubt it. Even if you did give a shit about someone, my guess is that you would never show it. Hell, I doubt you understand or respect the concept of love. I cared about Tristen. He was everything to me for a year. He was thrilled that I was going after my dream, pushing me to take out a loan. All he did was make certain he could take care of me after he was fucking murdered.”
While I would normally be furious at the level of impetuousness, I wanted her to talk, to share with me everything she could about Tristen.
And about how she felt about him.
Now that I’d spent time with her, their coupling made zero sense to me. Tristen was a man devoid of emotion, enjoying the rat race both inside a courtroom and while hunting down an enemy, exacting penance if necessary. While he was ice, she was fire, a bright burning star in the heavens. Something about their relationship didn’t add up and it had nothing to do with money or influence.
I grabbed a towel, wiping my face as she continued.
“I grieved. Okay? My heart ached. Some days it was almost impossible to walk into my bistro with a smile plastered on my face, pretending like the world was rosy when all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, hoping I could wake up in an alternate universe. There wasn’t a day that went by for a solid year I didn’t question why him. Why did he die in that accident? Why had I been left alone? Why was the world so cruel?” She took a deep breath, her face flushed from the anger, every sound ragged. “Why didn’t I really know him?” Her agitated voice had dissipated, making the last statement difficult to hear.
Sierra noticed she still had the glass in her hand, her knuckles white from the pressure she’d used. She slowly sat down, her body shaking as she lowered her head.
Saying nothing, I reached across the table, gently easing the glass from her hand. The touch was electric, her slight gasp indicating she felt it as well. Then she curled her fingers, pulling her arm against her body protectively.
I refilled her glass and this time she didn’t shove it away. A full minute passed, her former expression of defiance turning into resignation without emotion. The transformation was interesting.
It was also genuine.
“I really didn’t know him or what he was doing, but I suspected something was very wrong,” she said calmly before downing almost half the liquid.
“Be as specific as you can.”
The woman wasn’t as predictable as I was beginning to think. She sat back, taking her time and swirling her drink before answering me with a question. “You were really in prison?”