One Night To Risk It All. Katherine Garbera

keep her out of the spotlight. But she still didn’t like him. He always wanted Marielle and her brothers to present this perfect Kennedy-esque image of family.

      They were more like the behind-the-scenes Kennedys. The ones who’d been real and human and made mistakes.

      “Excuse me,” she said, bumping into a man who had stepped out of a building while talking to the man behind him.

      She stumbled, he caught her and she smiled her thanks. He smiled back and then she heard someone clear his throat behind him. She glanced over the man’s shoulder and straight into the dark chocolate eyes of Inigo Velasquez.

      “Inigo!”

      She turned on her heel, but she was already a bit off balance and stumbled for one step before straightening her spine and continuing along the sidewalk.

      “Have a good one, Marielle,” he called after her.

      She lifted one hand and gave him the bird as she kept walking. She knew he didn’t deserve that from her, but she was just ticked off about him and the situation.

      She’d almost gotten him out of her head, and of course she’d see him again. It was kind of like the Marielle law. If she never wanted to see a man again, they’d run into each other. That included her father, Carlton and former lovers.

      She finally got to the ad agency for her appointment and stepped into the lobby, moving off to the side to compose herself for a moment.

      Was it just her, or did Inigo look even cuter than she remembered? His lips had almost lifted in a smile before tightening. She thought for one second he might have remembered the fun they had before he recalled who she really was.

      She took a deep breath. None of that mattered now. She pulled her iPhone from her bag and opened the voice memo that Siobahn had recorded for her. She had made up a song for her to remind Marielle of her new path.

       Marielle rules the world,

       A badass who makes things happen,

       Leaving only smiles in her wake.

      She smiled and listened to it two more times. Now the song was in her head. Siobahn had used notes that were designed to stick in the listener’s mind. And as she tucked her phone away after checking her lipstick, makeup and hair, she heard the song playing in her mind.

      She smiled at the security guard and gave him her ID. He raised one eyebrow at her last name, but it wasn’t uncommon, so she just kept smiling as he asked her to put her bag on the scanner and then cleared her to go into the building.

      Inigo Velasquez was a memory. A happy memory that she had left behind.

       Yeah, right.

      Dante Peterson punched Inigo on the arm as Marielle walked away. Both of them were unable to tear their eyes off her. How was it possible she had gotten even more beautiful since he’d last seen her?

      She gave him the finger, and he almost smiled before he caught himself. She was his family’s enemy. He had to remember that.

      “Dude…she doesn’t like you,” Dante said.

      “That’s not true. She liked me just fine. I’m the one who doesn’t like her,” Inigo said.

      “Sure you are,” he said.

      “Screw you, Dante,” Inigo said. “She’s the other woman. The one Jose was cheating with.”

      “Well, damn. That really sucks.”

      “Agreed.”

      “So how do you know her?” he asked as the Moretti Motors driver pulled up and got out to hold the door to the Vallerio sedan. The car was classy, powerful and the hallmark of the vehicles that Moretti Motors made.

      “Where to, Mr. Velasquez?” the driver asked.

      “We need to go to the Four Seasons,” he informed the driver, sliding into the car first with Dante following behind him.

      He really didn’t have time to think about Marielle. There were some suspicious things going on with the racing team at Moretti Motors, and Inigo had just left a meeting with the team boss. It was believed that someone on one of the teams was sabotaging his car to ensure that Esteban Acola, the top driver on the Moretti Racing team, would win.