Seducing Texas (So not Prince Charming #2)(17)

“Forget that,” I say. “The hot bachelors can.”

“That’s true,” Fay says, grinning.

“I’ll swing by Royce’s office in about an hour,” Cyn says. “Willa has homework, so I’ll drop her off at home.”

Getting into the Mercedes, Fay says, “Sure.”

As Cyn drives us away, I stare in the side mirror. Aedan didn’t remember me, and it hurts. He wasn’t looking at me. Fay was being nice.

Cyn’s phone rings, so I answer it through the car. “Hola, Abuela.”

My grandmother speaks in Spanish, and mine has grown rusty. “Is Cyn there?”

“Sí,” Cyn says.

“You should give Manny the drive,” our abuela says.

What the hell? Is she out of her mind? She can’t be serious unless she wants us to die. I swallow down the rocks of pain. She loves him more than us. She always has. She never liked our mother Grace.

“Tell Uncle Manny that I have enough copies to fill a bathtub, and if something happens to any of us, that the feds will receive many of them,” Cyn says.

Grandmother then talks about her dogs, wishes us a good day, like she didn’t just tell us to more or less die, and hangs up.

“She chose her son over us,” I say.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Cyn says. “Manny foots her bills.”

“Mom used to give her money.”

“Not after she died, and I sure as hell wouldn’t give her any.”

I don’t like her quietness for the rest of our ride home. I know her too well. It’s like she’s planning on something that could be dangerous. I wish she wouldn’t risk her life for me.





Chapter Shane


Niki is becoming a pain in my ass. She’s called and texted me several times already today, and I have a lot of work to do. She’s pissed because I told her I was busy tonight, and it’s Friday. I thought being honest with her she’d back off, but it’s only made her more aggressive.

Niki hasn’t once mentioned my online dating business, other than to ask if we’re making money. The only way she’d have access to any of my computers is if I were sleeping with her at my place, and that’s not going to happen. I don’t give a f*ck what the feds say. I haven’t gotten any information out of her about embezzling my last company or any other businesses.

Cyn on the other hand has already been useful by finding the opened port. Damn, that girl’s smart and sexy, and I love the hell out of her.

It doesn’t help that Cyn doing the books next door distracts me, and I think Niki has figured that out and wants to see me more. I can hardly concentrate while thoughts of Cyn straddled on my desk while I f*ck her hard bombards my fantasies and my reality. We’ve christened the desk several times.

Timmons has sent me several texts too. He wants to know what the sniffer picked up. When figuring out who embezzled my money, two motives come to mind—technology and money. I’ve started to look into international companies with my telecommunication technology. It’s a dead end so far.

The sniffer I spent all night writing picked up traffic, and now I’m waiting on another package to figure out more of the routing IP addresses. Maybe I could exchange the sniffer for the back taxes I owe. A few of the IP addresses I found were private, so the feds will have to get warrants to obtain the owners’ information. I sent them to Timmons.

My smart phone buzzes and without looking at the caller ID, I gruffly answer it. “What?”

“Hi, Shane,” the buttery silky voice intones.

“What do you want, Lindsey?” I ask. She was my very first girlfriend.

“My mom’s going out of town next week, and my son and I really need a place to stay until she gets back,” Lindsey whines. This is how it always starts, though we’ve been broken up for years.

I’ve never really understood why Lindsey cannot stay at her mom’s while she travels with her boyfriend. “You’ll have to make other arrangements.” I try to sound civil since I did kill her brother in self-defense to protect Cyn and me. Under Manny’s direction, he and his uncle had murdered Cyn’s mom and tried to abduct Cyn.

I worry now that her uncle has given her a temporary reprieve and will come after her soon. I don’t know how to protect her against a large organized Mexican cartel, but I know that I will.

“Why can’t you stay at your mom’s?” I ask. Lindsey’s mom and mine are close friends and somehow guilt always wins.

We’ve been through this before. When we were kids, I thought I loved her, but as a teenager, I probably would’ve been in love with any girl giving me blowjobs in the nut-numbing cold of Alaska.

“She’s having it fumigated while she’s out of town.”

“Look, Lindsey. You took a blade to my throat when I pissed you off, and I shot and killed your brother. This isn’t a good idea.” I absentmindedly touch the scar she gave me running underneath my jaw.

“Please, it’ll only be for a few days. You wouldn’t put my son and me out onto the streets, would you?”

She’s got me there. I like her son, and at one time, she tried to convince me Remy was mine. A DNA test later, I found out he wasn’t. “Why not get a hotel?”

“You know we’re strapped for money.”