Dipping his hand back into the bag, he sing-songed, “Forus.Your sleep schedule will switch to mine soon.”
Ignoring the implication of that, she crossed the kitchen to hop up onto the island. Crossing her ankles, she informed him,“I have a mostly nocturnal life already, actually. The hours for one of my jobs is from five to eleven.”
Luis placed a can of something on the shelf before he turned to give her a confused look. “What? But you clean houses during the day.”
“I start at eleven in the morning, usually,” she explained, nails tapping on the counter top. “I take a break for dinner and then go to my other job.”
He crossed his arms. Scowling, he demanded, “So you work twelve hour days?”
“Such is the life of the poor.”
“You’re not poor anymore,” he reminded her. “You have the money from the Games.”
She shrugged. “I can quit one of my jobs — for a while.”
Looking deeply vexed, he rubbed his creased forehead. “That was why you said goodbye like that. You werequitting.”
“Yup.” She made sure to really pop herPon that one.
Luis opened his mouth in a way that made her think he was about to give her a piece of his mind, but nothing came out. Instead, he clenched his jaw, closed his eyes, and spread his hands out in front of him like he could physically wipe the thought from his mind. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “You’re here now. And you can go ahead and quit your other job, too.”
“No, I can’t,” she argued, quirking a brow. “I got a lot of money from the Games, sure, but it’s not infinite. And most of it is going to my parents. What’s left goes to— well, it’s not for me. Besides, it’s not like I plan on making the mistake of doing the Games again. I’m not getting money like that a second time, so I need to be safe. Save. Invest. Smart people things.”
Closing the distance between them, Luis braced his hands on the counter by her hips. He pressed close, until there was only a handful of inches between their faces, and whispered, “I’msorry, did you miss the part of the contract that says you get an allowance of one thousand dollars a day? Being hereisyour job.”
Needing something for her hands to do, Francesca fiddled with his unbuttoned collar. “Didyoumiss the part where that ends in thirty days?”
“Fine,” he replied, rubbing his lips over the rise of her cheekbone. The bristles of his beard tickled her skin. “Should we triple it, then?”
She tugged sharply on his collar. “Did you forget where trying to buy me off got you last time, Casanova? I have some pride, you know.”
“I’mwellaware,” he growled.
Luis cupped her cheeks and tilted her head back. He looked down at her with those midnight blue eyes and that straight nose and those wicked lips and his ridiculous white streaks in his hair and beard and she just…
“What gives you the right to be that handsome?” she grunted, scowling.
His white teeth flashed in a wicked grin and the lines around his eyes crinkled in the way she loved. “I hope you know that I intend to use my looks to the fullest advantage.”
For the first time since she admitted to herself that she had feelings for him, Francesca allowed herself to touch those charming lines. His smile fell with her gentle caress, and something in his face turned boyish and searching.
“These are my favorite,” she whispered.
His eyes moved back and forth, looking for something in her own expression. For once, she didn’t bother hiding anything. What was the point? He knew how she felt. It didn’t change the facts of their arrangement or their compatibility. There was no harm in honesty now.
Luis tilted his head into her hand. His eyes fluttered closed, allowing her to skim the tips of her fingers over the long fans of his silky eyelashes.
“I have to leave,” he rumbled, voice full of regret.
“Oh.” Her fingers curled into her palm. Dropping her hand to the cold stone of the kitchen island, she asked, “Where are you going?”
Luis opened his eyes. “My cousin wants me to report to him first thing. I have a feeling he’s gonna whoop my ass for yesterday.”
“But you got his money back, right?”
“Sure, but I also made a pretty big mess of things. The situation with Malachi deserves its own briefing.” He shrugged. “It’ll be fine. I make Felix way too much money for him to kill me. Also, his bride likes me, so he’s stuck with me.”
It hardly seemed fair to be disappointed, but nothing about this was as she’d pictured it. In her mind, whoever won her contract wouldn’t want to spend any time with her at all outside of blood donation. It’d never occurred to her that she mightwantto spend her night with them, or be sad when they left to do whatever it was they normally did.