Page 28 of Diego

“I have many talents. Your research should have revealed this.”

“My research certainly revealed a few things.”

That gets his attention, and he grins. “What kinds of things?”

I slide into the passenger seat and look up at him. “I think it's best if you just get in the car.”

He closes my door while laughing.

A moment later, he settles behind the wheel, and I take a second to appreciate the interior before pulling out my phone. The leather smells exactly the way an old car should, and everything around me feels mechanical in the best possible sense. Dad would have asked a hundred questions before Diego ever got the engine started.

The thought brings a familiar ache with it, but it is a warm one.

Diego turns the key, and the Aston comes alive.

I cannot stop my smile.

He notices. “You approve?”

“Of the car.”

“Harsh.”

“I felt the distinction was important.”

He sends me a salacious grin before pulling away from the curb smoothly.

I open the notes on my phone. Whatever else Diego Conti is, whatever that smile does to my concentration, and however good he looks behind the wheel of a black DB5, none of it changes what today is supposed to accomplish.

I have a client to impress.

I have a career to build.

And I have absolutely no intention of letting Randall Shaw fire me.

I glance at the first listing and give Diego the address.

Chapter Seven

Diego

The first property Blair takes me to sits directly on Lake Michigan behind a set of wrought-iron gates and enough mature greenery to hide most of the house from the road.

For the first few seconds after the gates open, I am not sure what to make of it. The privacy is immediately obvious, which I like, but so is the amount of landscaping surrounding the property. Trees line the drive, thick shrubs break up the sightlines, and the house itself does not come fully into view until I am well past the gate.

My first thought is that it would be a nightmare to secure properly. Too many places for someone to disappear. Too many angles to account for.

My security follows at a distance, exactly as instructed, then stops outside the property rather than coming through the gates behind us.

The drive curves ahead of us in a wide circle, and when the house finally comes into view, I understand why Blair chose this one.

A three-car garage lines one side of the property while the villa stretches along the other, the two structures forming an L around part of the circular drive. In the middle of the circular drive is a landscaped garden with low hedges, flowers, and a small ornamental tree that makes the approach feel more like the entrance to a private estate than a house in the city.

It is impressive.

It is also far too much house for me.

I slow the Aston as I follow the curve toward the front entrance, taking in the scale of the place. Randall Shaw told me yesterday that Blair did not have enough experience for a search like mine, and for the first time since I asked for her, I wonder whether he might have been right.