Sixx felt the fissures of tension opening up all the way across the space.
Stellan was regarding the man standing with him like he’d rather be dipped naked in a vat of slime with his eyes and mouth forced open than be in that man’s presence.
And the man had to be a relative. The age difference was definite, as was the resemblance.
A close relative.
Uncle at least.
Or father.
The man was holding himself awkwardly, like he wanted to go in for a handshake, or even a hug, but Stellan’s body language and facial expression were not only not inviting that, they were actively warning against it.
And then Stellan shifted, turning his back on Sixx.
That was when Sixx saw her.
A woman sitting at the table facing them, her eyes lifted, trained on Stellan, a look of astonishment and something else suffusing her features.
She was blonde. Very beautiful. Put together perfectly from head to waist, which was as far as Sixx could see, but that meant it went down further. Perfect hair. Perfect makeup. Perfect accessories. Perfect blouse. And all that perfect was the best money could buy.
She was either a professional stylist, a model or had a professional stylist because she was a model. She looked like she’d walked right off the location of a photo shoot to come have lunch.
She also looked like she wanted to eat every inch of Stellan up with a spoon.
Sixx’s heart started tripping even faster.
And then it happened.
The blonde beauty’s mouth went slack, and the fissure of tension splintering through the dining room split wide open.
Sixx stopped messing around with the mirror and turned on her stool to watch it in full view.
Scanning the scene with skilled attention, thus taking it all in within seconds, Sixx saw the older man now looked infuriated, his face flushed, his brows snapped taut, his slightly jowly jaw having tightened up.
The blonde appeared wounded.
And Stellan looked done.
He proved her assessment correct by turning on his expensive shoe and sauntering away.
Sixx watched him go, all the way out the door, noting that he no longer looked murderous.
He looked his usual.
Aloof.
What he’d come there to do, he’d done.
And now he was moving on.
She turned her attention back to the couple, and that was when she spotted the huge rock on the blonde’s left ring finger. Massive. Ostentatious.
Sixx could see it now because the woman’s hands were covering her face like she was hiding tears.
The older man sat and leaned immediately to her, putting a hand on her back to soothe her. Not in a fatherly way.
In a loverly way.
If Sixx had to call it, that man had to be at least in his sixties, the blonde in her twenties.
Sixx looked to the door to the restaurant Stellan had just disappeared through for a fleeting instant before she turned to her bag.
She pulled out her slim-line laptop and got the attention of the bartender.
When he jerked up his chin, she asked, “Do you have Wi-Fi?”
He nodded. “Password is BookerTMG. The ‘TMG’ in caps.”
Well, whoever thought that up had good taste in music.
She thanked him, opened the laptop, started it up, hooked into the Wi-Fi, and as she sipped Pellegrino then, when it arrived, ate her filet and frigging pommes frites, it didn’t take long for her to find it.
Andreas Lange, multimillionaire hotelier, father of multimillionaire developer Stellan Lange, had just last week announced his engagement to the woman who would become his fifth wife, Priscilla Newton.
Andreas Lange was sixty-nine years old.
Priscilla Newton was twenty-two.
Sixx didn’t dig any deeper because she wasn’t on the job then, but she was on a job, and she needed to eat and get back to business.
It wouldn’t be until she was bone-weary but unable to sleep in her hotel room late that night (or more aptly, very early the next morning) that she’d go back to her laptop.
It didn’t take long before she wished she hadn’t.
She snapped the laptop closed and looked out the window across the night landscape of the purposefully-built-to-impress-and-intimidate capital of the nation.
“This is why I never do a deep dive into people I know,” she told the window.
She said it, but her heart was far heavier than it should have been, or than she’d want it to be after doing a deep dive and discovering all she’d discovered about Stellan.
Sixx left her laptop to slide between the sheets (in a hotel, incidentally, that Andreas Lange owned, which meant she’d be moving to another one the next day), but she did not go to sleep.
She stared at the dark ceiling and did it until it lit with dawn, pissed as hell that Aryas had been right.
Everyone has demons.
Including Stellan Lange.
But not everyone knew the name of their demon.
But Stellan did.
Just like Sixx knew the name of every single one of hers.
Six months later …
Sixx was sucking in breath to handle the pain, driving, and hoping with everything she had she could make it to the doc Carlo had told her he had waiting for her without passing out when her phone rang.
When she saw in the dash who was calling, not thinking straight, she hit the button on the steering wheel to take the call.
“You’ve got impeccable timing,” she said into the car, hearing that her voice sounded strung tight and hoping the caller wouldn’t hear it too.
“How’s that?” Aryas asked.
Just that, if I’m going to die, the last voice I want to hear is yours, she thought.
“I’m dead tired but completely unable to stop myself answering when you call,” she answered, and all of that was true, she’d just left some things out.
Like a couple of fresh bullet wounds.
God, if she lived, it was going to be hell getting the blood out of the cognac leather of her beloved Cayenne.
Though, right then, that was the least of her worries.
“Just thought you’d want to know, that stallion I approved for Leigh…” He made her wait for it, but not long. “That shit took. He’s the one, and if I’m not sittin’ in a pew watching them walk down the aisle in twelve months or less, I’ll let you spank me,” Aryas told her.
At these words, but not entirely because of them, Sixx swerved, righted the car, and drew in another deep breath that wasn’t exactly cutting it to dull the pain.
When she didn’t answer, Aryas said, “So, what I’m sayin’ is, clear shot for you.”
“How’d Stellan take it?” she asked.
“He doesn’t usually Oprah it up with me,” Aryas answered.
Focusing on the conversation as well as the road, both doing wonders with keeping her conscious, she returned, “Come on. You’ve got your finger on every pulse of every player in every club you own. How’d he take it?”
“He’s not speaking with Leigh right now.”
Translation: He’d failed to make a play. Screwed the pooch.
Now he was licking his wounds.
God, but she’d love to lick Stellan Lange’s wounds.
Kiss all his hurts away.
Including the ones she laid on him with him begging her for more.
“You know I want all my babies happy, Sixx. Come home. Get some happy and give some to my boy,” Aryas urged. “Stellan is due, and it goes without saying you are too.”
Damn, it was starting to snow.
Just what she needed.
Driving, listening, talking, watching it come down, and trying to stay lucid, Sixx realized how much she hated snow.
Phoenix didn’t have snow.
“Sixx?” Aryas called.
“I’m here but I gotta go.”
“You cool?” he asked.
“Peachy,” she lied.
There was silence before, far more alertly, she got, “Sixx, are you cool?”
“Awesome,” she puffed out as an unexpected wave of pain hit her when she made a right turn and the movement didn’t suit her gunshot wounds too much.
“What the fuck is going down?” Aryas rapped out.
“It’s snowing,” she said.
“Yeah?” he prompted.
“And I’m driving,” she told him.
“All right,” he replied.
“So I’ve got to concentrate,” she pointed out.
He returned that favor, sharing out loud her earlier thought. “It doesn’t snow in Phoenix.”
Right then, Sixx made a decision.