Chapter Fourteen
Dani sat next to Jake in the office of her broker, Susie, surrounded by oversize Texas furniture, complete with a tacky side table with cowboy boots for legs and pictures of beauty pageants with big-haired women on every wall. Susie was Miss Texas twenty-five years ago. In an attempt to retain her former beauty, she’d had so much plastic surgery she’d achieved clown status, according to Jake.
Susie had “surprised” big eyes and a weird perpetual smile, and thanks to Botox, the rest of her face stayed oddly frozen in place, making it hard to read her true reactions. As a result, she looked thrilled that Dani was being chased by a lunatic and needed her help. She twanged, “Oh my God, Dani. This is horrible. What can I do to help, honey?”
Jake stifled a grin. He was the one who’d put the clown idea into Dani’s head, and she’d never been able to get it out. To pay him back for that, she gave him a discreet kick in the shin, before she said, “I was wondering if we could use one of the empty houses in our inventory to set up a fake open house? Something that’s been on the market so long no one will actually come if I post it on my Realtor page.”
Jake added, “It’d be great if it was a little remote and had some growth around to conceal my men.”
Jerry, who stood in the rear of the office, said, “And near a highway for a fast getaway.”
Susie slowly nodded. “Well, why don’t we just take us a look-see then?” She tapped away on her computer with her perfectly manicured blood-red nails. “We do live in the high desert, gentlemen. Dense growth is going to take us outside of town, maybe the east mountains for some trees?”
Dani inspected her fingernails while pondering why people from Texas always seemed to end every sentence with a high-pitched question mark.
She noted that her own manicure sucked. She should get to that soon.
Susie finally called out, “Here we go now. This is just perfect, boys. It’s been empty for three years. Everyone this side of Abilene has seen this piece of cow dung, and it’s just off old sixty-six.” Susie’s printer whirred and then spit out the listing.
Maybe she was wrong. Not one question mark in that last ditty. But she wasn’t a boy. Didn’t she count, too? It was her life at stake.
Dani snatched the printout Susie held out before Jake could take it and read the deets.
Impatient as always, Jake snatched it back. “Thanks. I’ll run out there and check things out. We’ll shoot for day after tomorrow. That should give Carlos time to see your web page announcement for the open house, Dani. Give me your lockbox deal.”
Damn Jake. When he’d used it before, she’d warned him it was punishable by huge fines, and she could even lose her Realtor’s license for loaning out a lockbox key. Even if he was a cop.
Susie’s scary face whipped in Dani’s direction, and maybe Susie’s eyes got a tad wider. Before Susie could chastise Dani—or fire her—Dani grabbed Jake’s arm and stood. “See why I’m divorcing him? His sense of humor is so bizarre. We’ll just go get a key from the back.”
Susie slowly shook her head. “You exhaust me, darlin’. If it weren’t for your mother . . . just don’t go and get yourself dead, please. I don’t have the patience to train someone new.”
If it weren’t for her mother? “What does my—”
“You ladies can chat later. Let’s go.” Jake tugged Dani along with him out into the hall.
“Let go. I want to ask what she meant by that.”
“Just leave it. She’s probably talking about using Annalisa’s fame.”
He was covering something up. She stopped in her tracks and crossed her arms. “I’ve never lied to you, Jake. I’d appreciate the same consideration.”
“Dammit, Dani.” He cringed and pulled her away from Jerry. “I don’t lie to you . . . often. But if I do, it’s always for yours or someone else’s own good. Can’t you just leave it?”
“No.”
“Interesting that you’ve never lied to me, but you’re lying your ass off to your new boy toy.” He crossed his arms, too, and then turned all smug. “I’ll tell you what Susie meant when you come clean with Michael. About the open house and about the woo-woo stuff, too. He has the right to know what he’s getting himself into. It’s a pretty damn big deal not everyone can handle.”
A ball of guilt formed hard and fast in Dani’s belly. He knew just how to push her buttons. “You can be such an ass, Jake.”
She raised her hand, signaling for Jerry to stay put in the lobby area; then Dani turned and headed for the utility closet where they kept all the keys. Jake trailed a few steps behind. She’d never called him a name like that, so now she felt guilty for that, too.
While she searched for the key, Jake stood nearby with his hands stuffed into the front pockets of his jeans. He was being unusually quiet, but she counted that as a blessing.
Jake whispered, “I just meant that as someone who loves you, I’d be mad if you risked your life and didn’t tell me. And I shouldn’t have said the other thing.”
True on both counts. Michael was going to know she’d done the bait and switch behind his back when it was over. Maybe she’d better come clean after all. No doubt it’d be an ugly battle. But the woo-woo statement was a low blow she never expected to come from Jake, making it hurt even worse.
She found the key and handed it over. “Now that we have a plan, I’m going to go see Michael and tell him about it. But it’s too soon to tell him about the other part. I can’t go around telling every man I date something that will affect not only me but possibly my mother’s life and her precious reputation, too. So, spill.”
“Fine.” He ran a hand down his face. “After we separated and you were having trouble finding a job, your mom made a deal with Susie to throw some business your way now and again—for a fee.”
So, all Dani thought she’d accomplished in her attempts to support herself weren’t because of her own hard work? Wow. That hurt ten times worse than what Jake had just said about her woo-woo stuff. “How do you even know that?”
He shot her one of his charming smiles. “I’m a top-notch detective?”
She waited him out.
“Dani, you’re . . . different. That makes things harder for you. I was worried your pride would get in the way and you’d suffer for it. I asked your mom to be sure you were taken care of when I couldn’t be the one to do that anymore. We both knew you’d never accept any direct help. You can be a little hardheaded.”
Code for Dani’s not just a loser, but a stubborn loser on top of it?
Great.
And ouch, again.
Well, at least she knew she had one legitimate client. Michael. And she was going to find him the perfect house, dammit, and prove them all wrong.
She sent Jake on his way and then sat down at her desk to find Michael the perfect home.
After two long hours of weeding through listing after listing, she finally found it. A home that fit all of his requirements, and some added ones she thought he’d really like, too. It even had a fabulous guesthouse for his mom. She couldn’t wait to show him.
She hopped up from her desk, grabbed her purse, and called out to Susie as she ran by her office, “I’m off to sell a house. See you tomorrow. And thanks again.”
Susie gave a little finger wave. “Well, I hope that’s all true, darlin’. Good luck.”
Jerry caught up with her as she headed out the glass doors. He asked, “Where do you think you’re going? Your mother gave me strict orders. Work and home only.”
“To Michael’s office. Don’t argue with me. It won’t do any good. Besides, we’ll be in my new bulletproof vehicle, so everything will be fine.”
He grabbed the keys from her hand. “Yeah, but I want to get there in one piece, so I’m driving this time.”
“Whatever.” Dani smiled as she climbed into her new car. Since Jerry’s car had been damaged in Vegas, they’d taken hers. It’d been fun to scare the crap out of him on the drive to her office.
While he drove, she posted her open house online. This could be the best thing she’d ever do, and they’d flush Carlos out―or the last thing she ever did if it all went wrong.
With the “winner, winner, chicken dinner” of MLS printouts in her hand and Jerry standing guard in the hall, Dani knocked on the frame of Michael’s office door. He was hard at work at his desk. She was relieved to see he was in one piece and looking extremely healthy. And very yummy in his slick lawyer duds.
When he glanced up, a cute, slightly annoyed frown at being interrupted lingered but quickly got replaced by a grin. “Do you have an appointment, Miss?”
It seemed Michael was in the mood to play, feeding her a handy opening line. “Nope. But I was hoping you could be persuaded to allow me just a few moments of your valuable time.”
He tossed his heavy pen on a stack of papers and leaned back in his chair. “Why don’t you come over here and persuade me?”
She added a little extra hip action as she sauntered toward him. Better to get him all worked up and distracted before she started telling the truth about things.
She grabbed his chin and pulled him close. “I can be very persuasive.”
“Prove it.” He pulled her onto his lap.
Before she could, he beat her to it and laid his soft mouth on hers. Michael’s kisses were even better than Mrs. Wilson’s French toast. Yuuummmm.
But, oh yeah, she was there for a reason, so she slowly leaned away. “I’ve got good news and bad. Which do you want first?”
“The good.”
She laid the MLS listing on his desk. “I found the most incredible house for you. And we should go see it this afternoon.” Mostly because she might get killed soon while impersonating a sitting duck.
She held her breath as Michael studied the listing. She was getting better at the being-a-Realtor deal even if no one else thought so.
She hoped.
When Michael’s lips slowly tilted at the corners, she could draw a full breath again. He says, Hhh
“Yep. This may be the one. I’m impressed, Dani.”
Take that, former Miss Texas! “Then let’s go.”
She started to wriggle off his lap, but he held her in place. “I just got a text from Heather. She decided she needs an emergency mani-pedi, so I have to pick up the girls at four. Do you think we can make it back in time?”
She checked the time on her phone and did some quick math. “Easy peasy. Let’s roll.”
“Okay. But what’s the bad news?”
She suddenly had no spit in her mouth. Probably better to just blurt it all out at once, like ripping off a bandage, in one stroke. “Jake and I have come up with a plan to flush Carlos Watts out. We’re going to hold a fake open house. I posted the deets on my web page.”
Michael’s neck muscles began to bulge, but she forged on. “I’ll be wired and in full riot gear, complete with helmet and bulletproof vest, but they’ll never even get near me, because Jake will have a team hiding on the property. They’ll ambush Carlos before he even gets out of the car.”
Michael’s eyes grew dark with anger, and his jaw clenched. “What if Carlos sends someone else to do his dirty work like he did in Vegas? You’d be risking your life for nothing, Dani. Don’t do it.”
“We figured Carlos has learned his lesson about sending someone else to do his job, and chances are he’ll do it himself. I can’t live like this, Michael. Waiting to be killed. I have to do something.”
Michael rubbed the back of his neck and growled. “So your mind’s all made up? And it doesn’t matter what I think?”
Her stomach hurt. “That’s why I’m telling you about it now instead of doing it behind your back—which was my original dumb plan so you wouldn’t worry. But then I realized how betrayed you’d feel afterward. This really isn’t all that different than you choosing to risk your life by being with me after I asked you not to, Michael.”
“This is entirely different!”
No, it wasn’t. But she didn’t have a good rebuttal, so she waited as a thousand emotions clouded Michael’s eyes while he stared deeply into hers.
After a two-minute stare-off, he finally closed his eyes and shook his head like he was going to give in.
Maybe dating a logical lawyer wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. “So, you get why I have to do this, Michael?”
“I think it’s too risky. But I’d probably do the same thing if I were in your shoes. How about you text Jake and ask if he can meet us at a coffee shop or something nearby? I’ll feel better if I can hear for myself what he’s planned.”
“Okay. But what about the house?” She sent a text to Jake. He responded right back and said he was nearby and wanted to talk anyway after he’d checked out the listed house. He’d meet them in the lobby in five minutes.
“The house can wait until after this is over. We need Carlos in jail so you’re safe. You are all that matters to me right now.”
Her heart did a happy jig in her chest. “Weird. That’s how I feel about you, too. Maybe this you-and-me thing is going to work out well after all.”
“Maybe.” He pulled her against his chest. “Do you have any other secrets, Dani? Because if you’re like Heather, hiding a huge secret, then I need to know now. I don’t want to go through hell like that ever again.”
The ache in her gut was back again. She couldn’t tell him about her special stuff. It was too soon. He was way too black and white in his thinking to easily accept what she could do was even possible. It’d take time and a plan of some sort to ease him into accepting her powers.
“I’m an open book.” Her heart split into a million pieces as she lied to him. “Let’s go meet Jake.”
She sucked.
Dani slipped off Michael’s lap, and then Jerry followed behind as the three headed down the hallway to the elevator. She glanced at Michael as they stepped inside, and she could practically see the wheels spinning inside his skull as he processed her sitting-duck plan. Might be good to get Jake and Michael to work together for a common goal for a change. Maybe they could actually become friends.
After the elevator doors parted. Michael laid his hand on her lower back, and they walked into the lobby. Two men even bigger than Jerry appeared before them. And one of them was Carlos.
All the air whooshed from her lungs.
She glanced to the side for an escape route, but all she could see was the receptionist, her shoes peeking out from behind the desk. As if she was lying on her back.
Ice-cold fear shot up Dani’s spine.
Please don’t let the receptionist be dead because of me.
Carlos’s lips tilted into a sneer. “Well, well, well. This must be my lucky day. I was just gonna kill you, Reilly, but looks like I got myself a twofer.” When he and the other thug rushed forward, Michael pushed Dani behind him, and Jerry tackled the thug.
This wasn’t going to end well.
Jerry and Michael wrestled with the men, but then a riot stick like the cops used connected with Jerry’s head, and he went down with a thud.
Her mind screamed for her to run, but she couldn’t move. Fear paralyzed her. That and she couldn’t leave Michael to fight the men alone. But she’d forgotten to pack her gun that morning.
Carlos got a hand free and slammed the butt of his gun against Michael’s temple, ending the battle in less than five seconds. Watching Michael’s body crumple to the ground killed her worse than the thought that she was going to be next.
Jerry was out cold, and now Michael was, too. She’d tried so hard to keep Michael safe. His girls needed him. She had to do something to put a stop to it all. But what? Focus and logical thinking seemed impossible.
When Carlos’s leg cocked back to kick Michael, she yelled, “Stop!” She met Carlos’s hate-filled gaze. “It’s me you want, not them.”
Carlos slowly nodded. “You’re right. I can finish him off later.” He lifted his gun and pointed it at her chest.
Carlos’s face turned wavy, so she blinked her eyes to bring him back in focus. The contempt in his eyes left no doubt. This was it. She was going to die.
Jake’s voice called out. “Police. Drop your weapons or I’ll shoot!”
Thank God.
The second thug dropped his gun and lifted his hands in the air. But Carlos kept his gun pointed at her.
Black dots appeared before her eyes. Maybe if she passed out first, she wouldn’t feel the pain as the bullet sliced through her heart.
Jake eased his way toward her, his gun aimed at Carlos the whole time. “Drop it, Carlos. Or you’re not walking away alive.” Jake nodded to the other guy. “Down on your stomach. Hands behind your back.”
Dani glanced at Michael, relieved to see he was trying to sit up. When his eyes locked with hers, the love and concern in his gaze brought fresh tears to her eyes. She held out a hand, motioning him to stay down, out of harm’s way.
Carlos said, “Are you waving good-bye to lover boy, Dani?” A sick smile formed on Carlos’s lips. “Because I’m not going to die here today for nothing. Bye-bye, bitch.”
She closed her eyes and waited for the bullet to end it all. When a deafening shot rang out, something hit her like a sack of cement, and she flew to the ground. Then another shot sounded, and a loud thump sounded beside her.
It was hard to breathe with so much weight on top of her, and her shoulder hurt from hitting the floor, but she was definitely still alive. But was Jake?
When she blinked her eyes open, Jerry lay on top of her with a gun in his hand, his eyes closed, and his shoulder soaked with blood. He must’ve jumped in front of her and taken the bullet.
Carlos was on the ground a few feet away, his eyes fixed in a vacant stare, obviously dead.
Was it finally over?
She drew in a much-needed gulp of air, hoping to stave off the need to pass out.
Jerry, true to his promise, must’ve killed Carlos for her. But was Jerry going to be okay?
She wriggled out from under his weight while trying to regulate her breathing and slow her pounding heart.
She glanced to the side and saw Michael sitting up and holding his head, so that was one less concern for her rattled brain to deal with.
While Jake cuffed the second guy, she grabbed Jerry’s wrist to see if she could find a pulse. “Jerry? Can you hear me?” Her teeth chattered so hard it was difficult to speak.
“Not in the mood to chat, okay?” He opened his eyes and grimaced.
He had a sense of humor, which had to be a good sign.
She blinked back her tears as the scream of approaching sirens filled the air. “Thank you for saving my life, Jerry. Maybe you’re not such a pain in the ass after all.”
He smiled weakly but kept his eyes closed. “You still are. I hate getting shot.”
She let out a pent-up sob as a paramedic slipped beside them. Jake helped her up and pulled her close. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, but Michael’s hurt. And the receptionist. Over there.” When Jake took off to check on the girl, she gingerly moved to Michael’s side and crumpled beside him on the floor. “God, I’m so glad you’re alive.” The swelling on the side of his head was concerning, though.
He took her hand and laid it over his heart. “You too.”
Jake returned with a concerned frown. “Looks like she’s going to be all right, too.”
That everyone seemed okay was a huge relief.
When Michael’s eyes fluttered and he swayed, Jake quickly knelt and helped him lie down. “Hang on there, Counselor. Let’s let the paramedics have a look at you.”
Dani moved out of the paramedic’s way as she let the tears she’d been struggling to withhold fall. The concern and speed at which the paramedics worked on Michael told her he was hurt worse than she thought.
“Tears? You never cry.” Jake slipped an arm around her tender shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, Dani.”
She shook her head. “It’s just that I love him so much, Jake. It scares me to think of how much worse this could’ve turned out if they’d ambushed him in his office. He’d probably be dead.” A new wave of tears overcame her.
Jake slowly nodded as he let his arm drop. “If that’s how you feel about him, then you need to tell him, babe.”
Jake was right. She couldn’t do what Heather had done to him and withhold a huge secret about herself. As soon as he was better, she was going to have to tell him what she’d only told two other people outside of her family. She hoped he wouldn’t walk away from her, like he’d been doing in her dream. “I will.”
Jake started to leave to take care of business but then turned back and took her hand. “If he can’t take the news, you’ll still have me. I’ll always love you, Dani. Just the way you are.”
God, she hated the pain that radiated from his eyes. It seemed all she’d done lately was hurt the men she loved.
Michael opened his eyes at the sound of a familiar voice. Nurses had been fussing over him for two solid days. All he’d wanted was an hour of uninterrupted sleep, but Dani was always a welcome distraction.
She laid a soft kiss on his forehead. “Hey there. How’re you doing?”
He sat up in the hard hospital bed, adjusting the uncomfortable gown. “Good, now that you’re here. They’re letting me go home this afternoon.”
“That’s awesome.” She settled in beside him.
He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “Being in the hospital again reminded me of something I never finished thanking you for the other day. My mom told me that after my car accident, you loaded her onto Annalisa’s jet and flew her to Dallas. She said you made sure she ate and slept, and took turns with her beside my bed until I woke up.”
“Yeah. The doctors didn’t think you’d pull through. It was the longest six days of our lives.”
He took her hand. “My mom said that on the sixth day, when the doctors were preparing Heather and you guys for the worst, you told them they were wrong, because you knew I was going to wake up. It wasn’t a half hour later that I did. She said the first person I asked for was you. But then you went home as soon as I was fully conscious. Why?”
Dani stood and poured him a glass of water. “Heather was making it hard for me to be there.”
“Was she mad because I said your name first?”
“Yeah. She asked me to leave.” Dani chewed her lower lip and seemed to have some sort of marathon debate going on inside. Finally, she said, “But maybe this is a good time to tell you how I knew you were going to wake up.”
That was a strange thing to say. “You hoped, like everyone else, right?”
She slowly shook her head. “No. I knew.” She sat beside him again and laid her hand on his arm. “This is going to seem a little unusual, but I need for you to hear me out. Have an open mind. Promise you won’t make any judgments until I finish. Please?”
The tears in her eyes filled him with uneasy dread. “Just spit it out, Dani. How bad can it be?”
“Well, it’s not a bad thing, per se, but it’s not normal.” She drew a deep breath. “I have dreams that come true. And I see visions sometimes if I touch things. I’d had a dream that you’d wake up, and you did.”
He rubbed his aching forehead. She wasn’t making any sense. Maybe his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. “Everyone has dreams. Some come true and some don’t.”
Dani stood and paced back and forth for a moment before she finally said, “I dreamed you’d marry Heather. Instead of me. It hurt so badly that I couldn’t be around you anymore. That’s why I stopped being your friend.”
“But that makes no sense. Heather hadn’t even moved to town yet by the time we parted ways.”
“Right?” Dani nodded. “How else could I have known?”
No. Stuff like that wasn’t real.
The ache in his belly began to match the one in his head. “What about the vision thing?”
Dani glanced around the room, then crossed to the other side and picked up a vase of flowers and closed her eyes. “These came from your secretary.” She put the flowers down and then picked up a sudoku puzzle book. “This came from your daughter.”
How the hell could she know that? “You probably read the card in the flowers.”
She shoved the vase his way. “See any card?”
That’s right. There wasn’t one in the arrangement, because his mom had removed the cards from all the flowers and stacked them on the table the night before so he could take them home.
Holy crap, things were getting weird. “So what happens when you touch . . . people?”
She sat beside him on the bed again. “Depends. If I open my mind, sometimes I just get a color, like an aura, and other times still pictures will appear. It’s all very annoying, actually.”
He couldn’t grasp the theory. It just didn’t make any sense. There was no such thing as that kind of . . . power. People who claimed to have powers were charlatans who took advantage of people.
As his mind scrambled back in time, replaying things from their shared past, cold dread skittered up his spine. Looking back, it did make sense. The way Zoe had told him that she didn’t need to go to college because Dani said Zoe was going to be a successful painter. She’d told him lots of things when they were kids that had since come true, too. He’d thought it was just another of the games they used to play, but there was no way anyone could have been that accurate by guessing. And the gambling. That’s how she’d won all that money in Vegas and why she wouldn’t take any for herself. And how she’d known he’d play on the Cowboys one day. There was no way anyone could have known which team he’d be drafted by.
So it was true. Dani must have some sort of strange intuitions.
As he processed the facts, a sick dread settled in his gut. It overwhelmed him to think that visions and dreams actually existed, but more so at how he didn’t know something so huge about the best friend he’d ever had. The woman he loved. And who claimed to love him back, but did she really?
“Why didn’t you tell me before now, Dani? Who else knows?”
She took his hand. “Zoe and Jake, Mom, Mario, Grandma, and Sara.”
The fact that Zoe knew unraveled him completely. Why would she tell a friend rather than the person she claimed to love? He and Dani used to tell each other everything. Or so he’d thought. What else hadn’t she told him?
“When did you tell Zoe?”
Dani frowned. “I think it was in the eleventh grade.”
He tugged his hand free and crossed his arms. It hurt to touch her. It hurt to look at her. “Why didn’t you tell me? We were best friends.”
She lifted her hands, then let them fall. “My mother forbade me to tell anyone about our dreams, and I used to listen better when I was little. I was a belligerent teenager when I told Zoe.”
“Our dreams?” No way could this be happening. “So your mom has prophetic dreams, too?”
“Yes. Remember my trespassing charge? My mom had a dream and figured out her friend, the mayor, had been embezzling government funds to feed his gambling habit. I snuck in and put the money back, from my mother’s accounts, before anyone caught him. That family vacation they’re on right now is really to the rehab place he’s checked into.”
“Dani, it’s a federal offense to tamper with government funds. You and your mother could go to jail for doing that!”
“I know. But we did it for his own good. He’ll get better, and no one will ever know. It’s like how I’ve helped Jake solve so many crimes.”
Jake again. Of course.
But it finally explained why she was always in court, testifying.
“And you and your mother commit crimes on a weekly basis? You’re lucky that you’re both my clients, or ethically I’d have no choice but to turn you in.” How could he be with someone who broke laws on a regular basis? The same laws he’d promised he’d defend when he became a lawyer.
Annalisa had told him Dani had just been discreetly dropping off something private for her at the mayor’s house and that the trespassing charge had just been a misunderstanding. Not a federal offense. So Annalisa was a liar, too.
Dani sighed. “I’m sorry, Michael. But our intentions are always good. We help people with our abilities, not hurt them.”
He still couldn’t come to terms with any of it. With the powers and the crime committing and the lying, Dani was breaking his heart—again. But it was the lying he couldn’t forgive. She was no different from his ex-wife.
Maybe all women were liars.
As he stared into Dani’s eyes, his fractured heart turned to stone. “You and my mother were the only two people in my life I trusted completely. You know trust doesn’t come easy for me. By lying to me, you crossed that line. The one you and I swore we never would with each other. I think you’d better go.”
She lifted her hands in frustration. “Michael, I love you. I just didn’t know how to tell you. I know how black and white you are when it comes to the law, but I was just trying to help the mayor. Please don’t shut me out.”
Tears slid down Dani’s cheeks, but he refused to be moved. He’d asked Dani directly if she’d had any secrets, and she’d said she was an open book. “Looks like that lying, cheating gangster blood runs in you, too. Just leave, please. We’re done.”
“Gangster blood? Really, Michael? For the record, you just crossed the line, too.” She angrily wiped her tears away. “I’m still the same person you’ve known for twenty years. Nothing’s changed. When you’re ready to be reasonable, we’ll talk again.” She gave him her back as she turned to leave.
Reasonable? That was rich. He wasn’t the one being unreasonable. Dani was being unreasonable to expect him to just overlook her playing Robin Hood on a regular basis. She’d done the same thing in Vegas, by using her skills to cheat. Just because her intentions were good didn’t mean she wouldn’t go to jail in the future if she were caught doing something like she’d done at the mayor’s office. What if they’d gotten married and had kids like he’d wanted? Would he be taking them to see their mother in jail?
Worse, she’d lied right to his face. That was something he’d sworn he’d never tolerate again from a woman. He had his girls to think of. He’d never want to bring a dishonest person home to them.
He and Dani were through.