flattened line.
“You grew up in Colombia though,” I point out, recalling what my father mentioned. “Supposedly, Mr.
Villa, you are linked to the drug trade.”
“Sí, supposedly,” he admits. “My father owned a ranch of sorts. We tended the fields. He grew an
array of unusual crops. Only later did I realize that the plants we grew supplied a criminal enterprise.
Allegedly, of course.”
Like his supposed links to cocaine.
“I’m sure you did what you had to do to survive,” I say carefully. “I know what that’s like.”
“Oh?” He chuckles. “Maybe I’ve lost that ruthless drive. After all, I’ve just alluded to illegal activity
in front of the daughter of an ex-judge.”
He expertly mingles fact with the veiled threat. Though a part of me suspects it’s more of a test. He’s
deliberately spoon-feeding me key bits of information that, if leaked to the press, don’t confirm or
deny the rumors. Smart man. Perhaps too smart.
“I think you’re calculating, Mr. Villa,” I tell him truthfully, still tracing an invisible path over the back
of his hand. “You wouldn’t let anything compromising slip around a potential threat, no matter how
much you may enjoy getting her naked.”
“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Ms. Thorne. It seems I repeatedly find myself saying things
around you that I shouldn’t.”
“Like?”
“For instance, would you believe that I have never mentioned my past to anyone?” His tone lowers in
an accusatory fashion. Like I’m to blame for his slip of the tongue. “Even in such admittedly sparse
detail.”
“You mean you’ve never told your past women”—I deliberately pick three names at random
—“Christina, Babina, and Martina, about your childhood?”
“No.” He slides his hand from beneath mine only to capture my fingers entirely. As I watch, he runs
his thumb along my palm. “I haven’t. They never held my interest beyond what I sought to learn from
them.”
Learn. A nice way of phrasing sex. “And what about me? Do I hold your interest?”
He frowns as if hating his answer before it even leaves his mouth. “I’m afraid to admit that you have
my full attention.”
