Marcos wasn’t small—he was five-nine—and made regular use of his gym membership, because he needed to be able to throw armed criminals to the ground and hold them down while he cuffed them. But this guy’s gigantic paw made Marcos feel like a child.
“Welcome,” Carlton said, his voice a low baritone. “My nephew tells me you’re in the market for a business arrangement.”
“That’s right. I’m looking—”
“No business yet,” Carlton cut him off. “This weekend, we get to know one another. Make sure we’re on the same page. Things go well, and I’ll set you up. Things go poorly?” He shrugged, dropping into a chair and draping his beefy arms over the edges. “You’ll never do business again.”
He gave a toothy smile, then gestured for Marcos to sit.
That same foreboding rushed over Marcos, stronger this time, like a tidal wave he could never fight. He could only pray the current wouldn’t pull him under. He tried to keep his face impassive as he settled onto the couch.
Then Carlton snapped his fingers, and three things happened simultaneously. Jesse sat gingerly on the other side of the couch, a tuxedo-clad man appeared with a tray bearing flutes of champagne and a woman strode into the room from the same direction Marcos had come.
Marcos turned to look at the woman, and he stopped breathing. He actually had to remind himself to start again as he stared at her.
She was petite, probably five-four, with a stylish shoulder-length bob and a killer red dress. She had golden brown skin and dark brown eyes that seemed to stare right inside a man, to his deepest secrets. And this particular woman knew his deepest secret. Because even though it wasn’t possible—it couldn’t be—he knew her.
“Meet Brenna Hartwell,” Carlton said, his voice bemused. “I can see you’re already smitten, Marco, but don’t get too attached. Brenna is off-limits.”
It was her. Marcos flashed back eighteen years. He’d been twelve when Brenna Hartwell had come to the foster home where he’d lived for five years. The moment he’d seen her, he’d had a similar reaction: a sudden certainty that his life would never be the same. His very first crush. And it had been intense.
Too bad a few months later she’d set their house on fire, destroying it and separating him from the only brothers he’d ever known.
After all these years, he couldn’t believe he’d recognized her so instantly. He prayed that she wouldn’t recognize him, but as her eyes widened, he knew she had.
“Marcos?” she breathed.
And his worst nightmare came true. His cover was blown.
Marcos Costa.
Brenna couldn’t stop herself from staring. Fact was, she might have been drooling a little.
What were the chances? She hadn’t seen him since she was eleven years old, a few short months after her whole world had been destroyed and she’d found herself dropped into a foster home. She’d still been reeling from her mother’s death, still been physically recovering herself from the car crash that had taken her only family away from her. She’d walked into that foster home, terrified and broken and alone. And the first person she’d seen had been Marcos.
Back then, he’d been twelve, kind of scrawny, with dimples that dominated his face. Even through her devastation, she’d been drawn to him. To this day, she couldn’t say quite what it was, except that she’d felt like her soul had recognized him. It sounded corny, even in her own head, but it was the best she’d ever been able to understand it.
Now, there was nothing scrawny about him. Next to Carlton, sure, anyone looked smaller, but this grown-up version of Marcos was probably average height. It was hard to tell with him sitting, but one thing she could see quite well was that he’d filled out. Arms that had once resembled twigs were now sculpted muscle, easily visible through his polo shirt.
And the dimples? They were still there, like the cherry on top of an ice-cream sundae. The man looked like a movie star, with his full, dark head of hair and blue-gray eyes that popped against his pale skin. And just like when she’d been eleven, she couldn’t stop staring into those eyes, feeling like she could happily keep doing it for hours.
“You two know each other?”
Brenna snapped out of her daze, realizing Carlton was glancing between them suspiciously as Marcos told her, “Marc-OH. My name is Marco.”
“Marco,” she repeated dumbly, still wondering what in the world he was doing here. Of all the ways she’d imagined running into him again, in the middle of the mountains at a drug lord’s lair certainly wasn’t one of them.
And if she didn’t get her act together fast, she was going to get both of them killed.
Brenna tried to clear the dazed expression from her face. “Sort of,” she answered Carlton, wishing her voice had come out as breezy as she’d intended, instead of breathless.
She glanced back at Marcos, praying whatever he was doing here, he’d leave before he could ruin things for her. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away, not even for the first boy who’d made her heart race and her palms sweat.
She strode through the enormous room, her too-high heels clicking against the marble floor, and then settled onto the chair next to Carlton. “I picked him up at a bar. When was it? A couple of years ago?” She shook her head, letting out a laugh, hoping Marcos would go along with her story.
She could have told them she’d known Marcos from the foster home. Carlton knew her history—at least the version of it she’d chosen to let him hear—and he definitely knew about her time at that foster home. But Marcos was using a fake name, and she didn’t know what his game was, but she didn’t want to contradict whatever story he’d given Carlton. Because no matter how much her heart hurt at the idea of the adult Marcos being a criminal, she held out hope that he was here for some other reason. And she definitely didn’t want to cause his death.
“Sorry for telling you my name was Crystal,” she said to Marcos.
Carlton guffawed and relaxed again. “Lucky man,” he told Marcos.
Marcos’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he looked back at Carlton. “Yeah, until she slipped out at dawn. But you never forget a face like that.” His eyes darted back to her for a split second, and then he accepted the glass of champagne the butler held out.
Brenna relaxed a tiny bit. She shook her head at the butler when he stopped in front of her and simply watched as Carlton, Jesse and Marcos toasted to a potential friendship.
Disappointment slumped her shoulders. She knew what a “potential friendship” toast meant. Marcos Costa was a drug dealer.
She should have recognized it instantly. There weren’t very many reasons someone would come out to Carlton Wayne White’s secret mansion. To even earn an invite, Marcos had to have some serious connections.
But Brenna couldn’t help herself. She looked at him now and she still saw the boy who had opened the door for her, taken her pathetic suitcase in one hand, and her hand in the other. That foster home hadn’t been anything close to a real second home to her, but she’d realized after being sent away a few months later that she’d gotten very, very lucky at that first introduction to life in the system. She’d gotten very, very lucky meeting Marcos.
She’d spent most of the rest of her life dreaming of him whenever things got tough, creating a fiction where she’d see him again and he’d sweep her off her feet. She knew it was ridiculous, but that didn’t matter. The dream of Marcos Costa had gotten her through the worst times in her life.
It made her sad to see that he’d grown