by Bethany-Kris
“How did you—”
“I just know you, baby.”
Right.
Lucia sighed, leaning against the sliding glass door and folded her arms over her chest. “And what are you doing out here, anyway? A whole one with nature bit, or …?”
“Thinking. And also waiting for our car.”
“What?”
“A car,” he repeated, “we’re going out.”
“To do what?”
“How about you just enjoy the day, huh?”
Lucia smiled. “That sounds perfect, Ren.”
He shrugged, still holding her stare and making her heart skip beats. Even thirty feet away, he could still look at her and make her feel like the only woman in the world for him.
“Thought so. Get a dress on that you can move in, Lucia.”
She didn’t need to be told again.
TEN
“Okay, now this is how we should eat everyday.”
Renzo grinned, nodding. “Absolutely.”
Lucia winked at him where she sat across the small table they currently dined at under a hut that was set a good thirty feet off from the restaurant. They had to walk to it on a path made of smooth rocks. She shoved another bite of rice into her mouth.
Part of the draw for the restaurant was the fact that one could dine either inside, or outside, in private, under one of the many huts that surrounded the place. Reservations for this place hadn’t been on the docket, but after chatting with the chef who worked at the house, the guy said he could pull some strings if Renzo made it worth his while.
Ren did.
Worth every penny of that thousand dollars.
Lucia loved it.
The soft tempo of a song reached their spot. A tune that could make anyone want to dance, though there were no lyrics. Although where it came from, Renzo couldn’t be sure. Nonetheless, the music had Lucia swaying to and fro across from him, the delicate line of her shoulders moving to the beat of the song while she finished what was left on her plate.
“I need another drink,” she said, picking up her empty glass and waving it at him. “And you need to give me a dance.”
“Oh, you think?”
“Mmhmm.”
“Which do you want first?”
Because he wasn’t entirely sure where their server went, but it seemed as though there were only a couple that worked the huts outside. Not that he minded because it allowed them more time to enjoy the place together, without worrying about someone coming to interrupt them every few minutes. Besides, he could easily go in and find a server to bring them out another round of drinks.
He didn’t mind.
Lucia eyed her glass carefully, and then her gaze darted to him over the rim. “That’s a very hard decision, Ren.”
His smile grew wider, and his tongue peeked out to lick the corner of his upper lip as he asked, “Is it really?”
“These are good drinks, but you’re a good dancer, so …”
“Think maybe you’ve had one too many drinks.”
Lucia shook her head. “Not nearly enough, actually.”
Right.
God, he loved this girl.
“One more drink,” he said, “but I thought you might want to see the Ubud Art Market, and we can’t do that if you’re so drunk that you can’t walk.”
Lucia pursed her lips, her index finger coming up to tap at her chin while she stared at the ceiling of the hut and considered his words. “Well …”
“Hmm?”
“You have a point. Maybe water would be better.”
Renzo let out a quiet laugh, because yeah, he didn’t need her to admit it for him to know exactly how buzzed she was feeling. Hell, after three of his own drinks, he felt it. Neither one of them was driving, so that wasn’t a problem. He just knew the market was something she would appreciate the most about Bali, next to the obvious beauty and magic of the place. He doubted she wanted to miss out on it because she had one too many drinks.
“Water first, then a dance,” he told her.
Lucia sighed. “Fine.”
Renzo leaned back dangerously in the chair, letting it dangle on two legs as he peered around the support beam of the hut to see if maybe the server was on his way back. Unfortunately, not from what he could see. “Stay put, hmm?”
“Where would I go, Ren?”
“Never know with you, baby.”
Her guffaw followed him out of his chair, and he gave her a kiss on the top of her head as he passed her by to leave the hut. Renzo didn’t bother looking for a server when they really didn’t need one whole person just to bring them out two glasses of something to drink. Instead, he headed for the bar and ordered from the woman there. She didn’t seem to mind.
The bartender had just put the glasses to the counter when a phone in Renzo’s cargo shorts started to buzz. Again. It’d been doing that all day—so far—and the only reason why Lucia had yet to notice was pure luck, and perhaps a bit of the fact that she was really enjoying herself.
He felt like a shit.
His regular cell phone and hers were both put away—shut down and done for as long as they were still on this vacation and no emergency came up. That was their deal. Thing was, Renzo couldn’t shut off one of his phones, and as Lucia hadn’t asked about this phone, which had been provided by his bosses at The League, well … he didn’t offer the information.
And today, that phone rang.
And rang.
Not once had he’d bothered to pick up the calls but only because he wasn’t required to. Besides, Dare and Cree both knew he was away on vacation, so why someone from The League decided to call his phone was beyond him.
However, just to make sure they didn’t keep calling, Renzo pulled the phone out of his pocket while he was in the safety of the restaurant and Lucia wouldn’t know. “Yeah, Ren here.”
He hadn’t even bothered to check the caller ID. Not that it mattered. It would only be a handful of people calling that goddamn number.
“You don’t pick up the phone or what?”
Ah.
Cree.
“You know,” Renzo said, “it’s been a few days since I heard your voice, Cree, and it wouldn’t have been a bad thing had I gone a few days more.”
“That’s not how you greet someone.”
“And what about your attitude, huh?”
“My attitude is just part of my winning personality. Like it or don’t, that’s not my problem.”
And that was Cree in a nutshell.
As fun as this was—and it wasn’t fun at all—Renzo was ready to get back to his wife and their vacation. He still had plans for the rest of their day, and he intended to make sure she enjoyed every single bit of it. She wouldn’t do that, however, if he was on the phone with people who needed to learn to respect his time.
“Listen,” he started to say, “I am on vacation, and everybody knows it. So, I’m not sure why you are calling this number—”
“Dare needs a favor.”
Renzo stilled. “I beg your pardon?”
Cree cleared his throat. “You heard me.”
“No, I’m sure I didn’t. At least, not correctly.”
A sigh echoed through the speakers.
Renzo waited the man out because shit … maybe he had heard him exactly right. It wasn’t like Cree or Dare to ask for anything like a favor, but especially not from one of their members. They weren’t the people who owed debts, they collected them and made others pay up for them. They trained assassins, and then lorded it over them for the rest of their lives.
“Shit luck, I guess.”
“What?”
Because Renzo hadn’t been paying attention.
He probably should have, though.
“Were you even listening to me?”
“You want honesty?” Renzo asked.
Cree grunted under his breath, muttering, “Listen.”
“I am now.”
“An … old friend of Dare’s,” Cree said, “
owns massive properties in Bali, one of which is a hugely popular resort for tourism on the island.”
“All right. What’s that got to do with this favor?”
“The guy has a son—sixteen years old.”
“And?” Renzo demanded.
Because he felt like he was missing something here. Or was that just him?
“The father … he called a couple days ago. Said his kid had gone missing. Except he hadn’t really gone missing; that’s just rich people bullshit for my kid is mixed up with the wrong people, and my money won’t get me out of the problem.”
Renzo’s brow furrowed.
Cree sounded … annoyed.
“You okay?”
“Fine, why?”
“Nothing, just—you sound pissed.”
“That my husband’s ex wants us to take his kid from a gang and train him as a League member? Oh, and Dare is willing to go ahead with it because he feels like he owes that fuck something. Yeah, that kind of pisses me off.”
Renzo blinked.
Five times.
Because that’s how long it took him to absorb everything Cree just told him. Oh, sure, he’d heard rumors about Dare and Cree. Things like the two men were more to each other than just members of the same organization. He’d once asked Alessio Sorrento—another League member—about it, seeing as how Cree and Dare had basically taken the guy in and raised him from the time he was ten, but Les never said one way or another.
“Uh—”
“Sorry, that was a bit more info than I meant to give,” Cree said thickly. “Just … the kid is sixteen, and not only is he wanted by the authorities there for some of the dealings he’s had with this gang … but now his father hasn’t had contact with him for over two weeks. He’s willing to pay a lot of money to have the kid protected and straightened out.”
“Straightened out, huh? That’s a nice way to say you’re going to break him on every level possible and make him wish he were dead.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t make the fucking rules.”
There was that attitude again.
“You’ve got the week to figure it out and we’ll help with the details,” Cree said, “but basically you’re going to have to put him on a plane. That’s the gist of it. Easy.”
“But is it?”
“Pardon?”
“Easy,” Ren clarified. “Is it easy?”
“No. It never is.”
Right.
“I have to get back to my wife,” Renzo said. “Call after one in the morning—this is supposed to be mine and Lucia’s time. At least if you call around that time, this won’t affect her.”
“Will do. And uh … thanks, Ren.”
“Yeah, but you all owe me.”
Cree made a disgruntled noise. “Dare does. Have him pay up.”
Oh, he certainly would.
ELEVEN
Lucia couldn’t help but run her fingers over the strokes of oil paint that made up the sunset and beach portrait the artist had painted on a smooth piece of wood carved in the shape of a surfboard. It wasn’t a one-of-a-kind design, considering there were twenty other painted miniature surfboards right beside it, but that didn’t matter to her.
It was still amazing.
All the attention to detail.
“That’s all you want for this?” she asked the man behind the small booth who had previously given her the price.
One that was far too low for the time put into this.
He gave her a look. “Ma’am, people tend to barter lower in the market. It’s how things are done.”
She couldn’t imagine that.
“I don’t barter with artists,” she explained quietly, her attention going back to the foot-long surfboard painting in her hands, “because I feel like they know what their art is worth and who am I to tell them differently?”
Even if that was her job …
That never mattered.
Lucia’s respect for art was unmatched in that regard, and without artists who could make a livable income on their work, then there wouldn’t be anything for her to admire and appreciate. She wouldn’t have a goddamn job, either, without people willing to make art for her to show off, celebrate, or sell.
“No need to barter,” she told him, smiling.
She understood that it was a tradition here, and even Renzo had warned her about it when they’d first stepped into the market later in the afternoon—everything will be a higher price because we’re later in the day, he’d added—but she couldn’t do it. Bartering wasn’t in Lucia’s blood, but frankly, she was happy to pay the price the man originally asked.
Which she did.
He offered a brown paper bag to wrap her treasure in, but Lucia refused, fine to carry the item through the market for now. Besides, once she found where Renzo had gone, it was only around the corner at a shop selling T-shirts and musical instruments that the two of them had broken away from each other, he could hold her painted surfboard.
There were quite a few more things in the market that she wanted to check out, but not without Renzo keeping her company. Plus, she needed his arms to carry all the things back to the car, and he was so good at doing that.
Lucky for her, she didn’t have to search long. In fact, he hadn’t even left the shop with the T-shirts and music. Only now, as she stood in the doorway looking in, she found that her husband didn’t seem as interested in the clothing or whatever else the store was selling.
A little girl had caught his attention.
The brown-eyed, black-haired girl looked to be no more than five, if that. Maybe even younger. And yet, she was having the time of her life, dancing on the tips of Renzo’s combat boots while he held her hands and a man sat on a nearby stool, strumming out a fast tune on a guitar. A woman next to the man wearing a loose-fitting, flower-printed dress clapped in tune, her smile wide and her gaze fond as she watched the two.
Maybe the girl’s mother.
Lucia had no idea.
Although, as fast as she noticed the other people in the shop, Lucia was quick to go back to the sight of Renzo dancing with the little girl. It wasn’t just the child who seemed as though she were having the time of her life.
Renzo was loving it, too.
She hadn’t expected to feel something stirring in her stomach and chest at the sight—something new; a feeling she had never given much thought to before now. But watching him dance with that little girl, his smile so fucking wide, reminded her of how good a father he would be. That all the love he kept so close to his chest because that’s just who he was deserved to be shared with someone else in their life. Yeah, they had Diego, and Renzo often volunteered when he had the time for the youth centers in the city, but none of that was the same, she knew.
It wasn’t their child.
It wasn’t lost on her in that moment how Renzo had never once asked that of Lucia. They’d talked about kids, yeah, and what they wanted, but he never said it needed to happen. And he certainly didn’t put a time limit on it. He didn’t make demands or constraints, almost like he was waiting for her to decide when the time should be right for them.
Was the time right now?
Did they have time in their already busy lives for something like babies?
She didn’t know.
When was it ever the right time?
Not that it mattered.
She heard the clock ticking now.
Loud and clear.
Funny, how something like that could change in a second.
The man playing the guitar brought the song to a close with applause from everyone in the shop, and Renzo, too. Even Lucia joined in, which finally seemed to catch her husband’s attention and let him know she was there waiting for him.
He gave her a wink.
She blew him a kiss right back.
The little girl stepped off his toes and beamed up at him. “Thank you for helping me practice my English, Mister.”
“Thank you for that dance,” her husband replied
.
And there went her heart.
Melting into a puddle.
He said goodbye to the little girl, paid for the items that he had sitting on the floor next to where they’d been dancing, and then he joined Lucia in the doorway. For a second, she just stared at her husband as he slipped both arms around her waist and pulled her close enough that he could tip his head down and drop a soft kiss to her lips. Between them, she held tight to the painted surfboard.
“Found someone to dance with, did you?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t know where you were.”
“Mmhmm, well, I’m not that jealous about it. It was terribly cute.”
The grin he flashed her was downright sinful. “Oh, are we back to me being cute, baby?”
“Well …”
“I can always remind you why I soar far beyond cute.”
“Not here, you can’t,” she replied.
She was sure they still had an audience, even if she was too caught up in her husband to notice the rest of the people.
Renzo made a face. “Mmm, maybe not.”
Before Lucia lost her nerve, she asked the thing that was waiting on the tip of her tongue. “Do you want a baby?”
He tipped his head to the side, a small smile curving his lips in the sweetest way. “You know the answer to that, Lucia.”
“Yeah, I know you want kids. I meant … do you want them now?”
That made him pause.
She waited him out.
“I just … was waiting on whenever you were ready for that,” he said quietly.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“And we’re always busy.”
“We can’t slow down a bit?”
Renzo arched a brow. “Babe, I can do anything for you.”
Yeah.
She knew that, too.
“So, let’s slow down.”
He dropped another kiss to her lips, although this one lingered just long enough to make her forget about the market entirely. “Let’s slow it down, Lucia.”
TWELVE
Renzo lingered in the master bathroom’s doorway while Lucia finished her nightly rituals. Mostly cleaning away the makeup of the day, pulling her hair back to secure it while she slept, and putting that melon-smelling moisturizer that made her skin so fucking soft all over. It also made her taste even more edible, not that he was supposed to know how the lotion tasted, but that was a story for another day.
