Dino (Glass City Hearts Book 2) Read online

  DINO

  GLASS CITY HEARTS BOOK TWO

  Desiree LAFAWN

  DINO

  GLASS CITY HEARTS BOOK TWO

  Copyright © 2018 by Desiree Lafawn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Note from the author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Tracie Douglas of Dark Water Covers

  ISBN-10:1719232695

  ISBN-13:978-1719232692

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  More Books by Desiree Lafawn

  About the Author

  1

  Jeanette

  This morning I flooded my kitchen.

  I’m not usually so scatterbrained, but I had a lot on my mind lately and much of it had to do with a particular smooth-talking Italian that had been getting on my last nerve. I’m pretty sure his one real joy in life is repeatedly poking and pushing my buttons, but he shocked the hell out of me yesterday when he had asked me to be his date for tonight.

  I shocked the hell out of myself when I said yes.

  Usually I can serve the digs back to Dino just as quickly as he can needle me, but I just felt so challenged when he asked me out that I felt like I just had to accept. And it wasn’t a date. Not really. It was an assignment apparently. What kind of assignment? He wouldn’t tell me. Dino didn’t tell people any more than he thought they should know, which wasn’t much at all.

  I’m a secretary. A personal assistant. I’m actually much more than that but if I were asked what my job title was, that was as narrow a description as I could give. I work for Gabe Anderson, recently the head of Anderson Investments located in the heart of the Glass City, Toledo, Ohio. Previously a protector for hire, jack of many covert trades, a mercenary. Gabe was one of the good guys though, I had been working for him for over six years and we had a special trust. I knew a lot about him, and he knew more than most people did about me.

  Dino though? He was someone different. I knew part of what Dino did, but maybe that was false information too. I would be hard-pressed to come up with a last name for him, mostly because Dino had so many aliases I wonder if he even knew what his legal name was. Working for Gabe I had access to a lot of information and could probably have done a little digging into Dino, but I’m not that kind of woman. I have secrets of my own-I’m not inviting anyone to peek any more closely at me than they need to.

  I knew enough about Dino though, to understand that he was one of the most infuriating men I had ever met. He thought he was God’s gift to women, and used his glib tongue to get whatever he wanted. Most of the time what he wanted was information because Dino was a spook. Did he work for the feds or some other government agency? Was he a spy working multiple sides of a shakily drawn boundary line? I don’t know for sure, but I’ve heard some things. What I do know is that Gabe had worked with Dino on several different cases over the years that I had known him, and at this time we kind of sort of maybe owed him a favor.

  I hated owing anyone anything.

  “Dino, just because Jeannette works for me doesn’t mean you can make her do things for you. That’s not how it works.” Gabe had stood in the waiting area outside of his office, which happened to be my office, and leaned against the doorjamb with his arms folded across his chest. A frown marred his young and handsome face as he considered Dino’s request.

  “You helped me out big time when I needed you to for sure. But that’s my favor. Jeanette doesn’t owe you shit.”

  Dino gave Gabe a long-suffering look. I took advantage of his distracted attention to let my eyes roam over his broad shoulders, currently encased in a tight-fitting gray Henley that narrowed in at the waist. Dark wash jeans that molded to his hips completed the look. He looked like denim-wrapped sin and I hated that I even noticed. It was a casual look for Dino, and I wondered briefly if it was something he enjoyed wearing or if he was playing another character today.

  “I’m not asking to clear your debt. I’m asking because I need a date for the auction this weekend and I need to go with someone who will let me work. If I take someone else, I’ll have to split my attention. If Jeannette goes with me then I don’t have to pretend I’m on a real date.”

  Well damn that stung, even though I didn’t have any feelings for Dino other than thinking he was aggravatingly attractive. My lady pride took a blow at being referred to as a fake date. God, his personality sucked.

  Well hell, I wouldn’t let him know it hurt. I decided long ago that no man would ever hurt me again. Compared to what I had been through in what seemed like a past life, his words were like raindrops on my windshield. It sucked driving in the rain, but the water still rolled off the outside of the car. My insides were good. No harm, no foul.

  “Does your need to work at the charity auction have anything to do with why you are playing wise guy to a scumbag like Chaz Malone?” I asked, surprised that I would even go so far. I wasn’t even interested in what he was doing. Although he did surprise both Gabe and me by showing up in Toledo as a hired thug for the local Detroit crime boss. Dino was way above that kind of pay grade, and I was pretty sure there was some sort of moral code lurking beneath those chiseled abs and piss-poor personality. It had turned out to be a blessing in disguise though, because the favor that Gabe had been talking about had been Dino helping rescue Gabe’s now girlfriend Angel from the clutches of Chaz and his other goons, all without blowing his cover, of course.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” His attention had fully returned to me. “I might tell you if you agree to be my date and provided you can wear something a little dressier than those stuffy little pantsuits you wear to the office every day. You could have a bangin’ body under there, but no one would ever know with all those layers you hide under.”

  “Sexual harassment is a thing, Dino,” I said tiredly. He said that stuff to get under my skin, I knew that. Trouble was that it worked, and I tugged at the ends of my charcoal jacket, aggravated that I had let him into my safe space. I pick these clothes on purpose, asshole, I said to myself. I would never say that out loud though. No, that would lead to him asking “why?” and I wasn’t prepared to answer that question. That was nobody’s business.

  I shuffled some papers on my desk from behind the counter that separated my work area from the rest of the waiting area outside of Gabe’s office. With my index finger I pushed my glasses up from where they had slid down the bridge of my nose. I didn’t particularly like wearing them, they were uncomfortable and contributed zero percent to correcting my already perfect vision. They were still necessary though, so I continued to put them on every day, and continued to push them back up when they slid down my nose. After six years it was a practiced gesture.

  I stopped shuffling papers when a pair of hands appeared on the counter in front of me. I looked up in surprise to see Dino’s face much closer to my own than I had anticipated, probably because he had crossed his arms on t
he counter in front of me and had leaned over so he could look me in the eyes.

  “Hey babe, if you don’t think you’re up to it, I’m not going to pressure you. Just thought you might want to get out for once. It would do me a solid and give you a chance to do something besides feeding your cat and doing crossword puzzles or whatever it is you do in your free time.”

  Oh. Hell no. Those were fighting words. One – I did not even have a cat and two – there was nothing wrong with a good crossword. It keeps the mind sharp and Dino could piss off with those generalizations. He didn’t know any more about me than I let him; that went for anyone else as well. Through the red haze of anger I managed to spit out through clenched teeth, “What time will you be picking me up?”

  It wasn’t until I saw the slow curl of his full lips and the quick flash of white teeth that I realized I’d been had.

  It was remembering that turn of events from the day before that had me staring at nothing in my kitchen, and thinking of Dino’s infuriatingly sexy mouth that had me forgetting about the coffeepot I had filling on the counter. If I were a normal person and filled it in the sink there wouldn’t have been an issue, but no I had to be extra and use a reverse osmosis filter that had a spout that came right out of the countertop.

  If I wasn’t so stuck remembering how Dino had taunted me into doing exactly what he wanted me to do I would have noticed the water creeping over the edge of the glass decanter and rolling silently down the sides. Nope. My mind was going over every detail of Dino’s caramel-colored eyes that seemed to look straight through me even as he was saying something insulting to spark my temper. It was the sound of water dripping down the cabinet door and onto the floor that brought my attention back to the present. And dammit if it wasn’t too late by then.

  This wasn’t a one towel cleanup either. It was embarrassing to admit I had been standing in my kitchen daydreaming about Dino as my coffeepot overflowed completely down one counter, behind the kitchen sink and down the adjacent counter as well. Crap. Double crap. It ended up being a four-towel cleanup, mostly because I was so scatterbrained I started cleaning up the water on the floor without turning off the faucet, so the water continued to rain down the cupboard doors as I tried sloppily sopping up the mess at my feet.

  Jesus Jeanette, get your shit together.

  Mooning after Dino would do me no good. That’s not the type of woman I am. I don’t moon. I was just irritated that I let him get one over on me that was all. If I could return the favor I could erase the whole thing from my memory. It pissed me off that he made fun of my clothes. I wore those frumpy pantsuits for a reason – I don’t like to stand out. I don’t want men to find me attractive. I don’t want to be the object of any man’s desire. Not ever again. That’s how I stayed safe for the last six years and that was how I would continue to stay safe in the future.

  Don’t bring attention to yourself. Stay focused. Stay hidden.

  Oh, but it irked me that he thought I didn’t know how to be fancy. That asshole, I would show him. I hesitated over the buttons when I started the text message. Angel was Gabe’s girlfriend and we had become associated through circumstance, but we hadn’t really gotten off on the right foot. I actually had accused her of being a gold-digging money bunny when we first met, but then some things happened, and I am pretty sure she forgives me now but we aren’t besties or anything.

  I don’t really have friends.

  I don’t make those kinds of connections because baggage can hold me back if I have to leave in a hurry. Friends can cause you to make decisions based on emotions, and well, I just don’t have the liberty of wearing chains that heavy anymore. But I could use her advice, she has much more of a bold personality than I do so she could help me pick out something suitably eye-catching for the auction. It had been almost ten years I had been on the run, and I’d moved across the country since then. It wouldn’t hurt to let the light shine on me for one night.

  Just one.

  Are you free to go shopping this afternoon? The response came almost before I was even finished typing the question.

  We have an appointment at The Castle Boutique at three. It’s about time you texted me. I was about to drive to your apartment, but I don’t know where you live. I’m dying to find you something to wear tomorrow night. Really make Doucho swallow his tongue!

  Well. Angel was certainly excited. I assumed Gabe had told her all about the conversation. I couldn’t blame him. Gabe hadn’t looked happy, but I had made the decision myself so he wouldn’t say much about it. Gabe knew some things about my past, but not all. He at least knew that I liked to keep a low profile. And that attention from men made me nervous. Damn Dino had pushed me into a corner though, and pride had dictated my actions. It also didn’t surprise me that Angel referred to him as Doucho. He’d had some fun at her expense a while back, and she hadn’t forgiven him. Considering he’d had told the bar manager where she sometimes sang that she had pissed her pants and that was why Angel ran out in the middle of a set instead of the real reason, I could see her point of view. She had been terrified for her life and trying to shake a kidnapper, who also happened to be Dino. It had been a huge misunderstanding, Dino had been looking out for Angel in the grand scheme of things and had actually helped save her life. The incontinence part though, completely unnecessary and completely Dino.

  I gave her my address and Angel picked me up at two thirty driving a flat black Escalade that I know did not belong to her. I watched her from my front window as she pulled up directly in front of my condo with one wheel up on the curb. It was not a legal parking space, so I hustled out of the house before she could get out of the car. Opening the passenger door, Janice Joplin wailed about Freedom being nothing left to lose before Angel turned down the volume and gave me a wicked grin.

  “Gabe know you have his ride?” It was a rhetorical question. If Gabe didn’t want her to drive it, she wouldn’t be in it right now.

  “I got a thumbs down when I asked to take the Lexus,” she answered with another mischievous smile, “but he wouldn’t let me pick you up in my Jeep.” She ran her hands through her mop of curly blonde hair and shrugged. “He said there was no way I was taking you to The Castle in a Jeep I hadn’t bothered to wash the mud off. He’s right, I took Bev muddin’ last weekend and we tore it up. She’s a mess.” Angel laughed when she said it and I assumed she meant Bev was her Jeep. I’d heard about those Jeep people, their vehicles were family members. I decided not to ask and just slid into the passenger seat. Well, hiked my butt up and into the passenger seat. Angel wasn’t super tall, I wonder if she needed to jump to get into the driver’s seat?

  “Well whatever the case, I am really glad you are going with me. I haven’t been shopping for anything fancy in forever. I wouldn’t even know where to look.” It’s true, I’d come to Toledo with Gabe when he moved back home to take care of Anderson Investments when his dad passed away. That was less than two years ago, and I still didn’t know enough about the place to know where all the places to shop were.

  “Oh that isn’t even the best part,” Angel’s eyes sparkled with conspiratorial glee as she whipped out a little square of black plastic from a wristlet on the seat next to her. “I have one of Gabe’s credit cards.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t! I have my own money I don’t need that.” And it was true. I definitely had my own money, and I certainly couldn’t expect my boss, and Angel’s boyfriend no less, to buy me a cocktail dress.

  “You can and you will. Oh please, let Gabe do this.” Angel was openly laughing now, and I can only imagine the conversation that took place where she ended up with Gabe’s card. “He wants this so bad. Gabe told me how Dino pushed your buttons, and the mess he was talking about your clothes, ugh!” Angel banged her hand on the steering wheel in agitation. “I’m serious, these words are straight from his mouth: “Tell her to get a dress that will make him swallow his tongue, and then maybe he won’t be so quick to talk shit.” You have to do it, Jeanette, it’s practi
cally an executive order.”

  I had to give in after that. It didn’t hurt that I knew Gabe was loaded and a cocktail dress for me wouldn’t be a raindrop in the bucket of his wealth. Gabe was a rich guy, living like a rich guy does. If he wanted to buy me a dress just to get one over on Dino, who was I to stop him? Angel looked like she was on a mission as she parked the Escalade, crookedly, in what I was pretty sure was another illegal parking spot. She practically grabbed my hand and ran for the door. “Oh my God this is going to be so much fun,” she shouted right before she swung the door opened and barreled inside, creating a tidal wave of noise, boobs and curly blonde hair. Angel was a bombshell, and she turned heads wherever she went. She didn’t seem to notice though, which I thought was hysterical considering Gabe practically salivated whenever she was in the room.

  This boutique was not the type of place a person makes noise in. Everything about the interior was subdued and covered from ceiling to floor in white and cream tones. From the plush carpeting that hid the muffled sounds of every footstep, to the overly-padded furniture that I was kind of afraid to sit in lest I leave some stain behind that shouted, “She doesn’t belong here!” My feelings of discomfort grew as Angel noisily made her way to the service desk located directly in front of the doors, almost like a security checkpoint stationed to keep out the riff-raff.

  It was amazing how fast the pinch-faced attendant working that desk changed his tune when Angel flashed that black card and told him we had an appointment. I almost laughed when I heard she reserved our time under Gabe’s name. Angel wasn’t a dummy, she knew how to get things done. Three minutes of waiting tops and we were led back to a private room where I was measured, and a long rack of flowing gowns was wheeled into the room. The low lighting flashed across a myriad of sequins and colors, making the dresses look more like jewels than articles of clothing. I was dazzled. I had never been in such a position in my life.