“That sounds fine.”
“Good.” Bo paused, looked around, then back at him. “So tell me what’s the deal with you and Ava.”
Rick shrugged. “Ava’s just a f**k. I don’t even know her. I figured she was a Hellraiser babe.”
“Nah. She’s Lacey’s friend. Pops in to see Lace every now and then, but otherwise she’s nothing to the Hellraisers. I just wanted to know if she meant something to you.”
Rick had to play it cool, had to know where Bo was going with this. “To me? She doesn’t mean anything at all.”
“So she’s disposable.”
“Hell yes, she’s disposable. I don’t keep women in my life. Never have, never will.”
Bo’s smirk sent a warning signal his way, especially when Bo lifted his gaze over Rick’s shoulder.
Rick turned around.
Fuck.
Ava was standing right behind him. And the shocked expression on her face told him she’d heard what he’d just said.
Ava swallowed, but there was a lump in her throat the size of a baseball.
She was just a f**k. Disposable. He didn’t even know her.
The things he’d said shouldn’t hurt, because he was right. He was right about all of it.
But goddammit, it did hurt. It hurt bad. She didn’t know which was worse—being stunned over hearing Rick tell Bo how he really felt about her, or finding out how she felt about him.
When had she started to care?
Rick pushed back from the table. “Ava.”
She held up her hand. “Don’t. Just . . .”
She pivoted and turned, pushing past an open-mouthed Lacey. Hoping like hell that no one followed her, she punched the button for the elevator, grateful that the doors pulled open immediately and no one was in there. She hurried in and jammed the button for the second floor, her gaze fixated on the lobby in front of her, searching out Rick or Lacey.
The doors closed and she exhaled.
When she got to her room, she bolted the door and took a moment to lean against it.
You’re waiting for him. You want him to come after you.
You are so stupid, Ava, because he isn’t going to. Weren’t you listening downstairs? You’re disposable.
What was she so upset about anyway? She’d come here to see Lacey, to find out how she was doing and see if she could repair their friendship.
That part, at least, seemed to be going well. Lacey had asked her this morning to go to Mexico with her. A short, two-day trip, but Lacey said she often went, stayed overnight at a wonderful resort and got the full spa treatment, then headed back. A gift from Bo, Lacey had said, because Bo traveled a lot on business—what business that was Ava had no idea—and he felt guilty leaving Lacey alone so much.
Of course if Lacey was in school she wouldn’t be lonely and bored, but that was a topic Ava intended to bring up once she got Lacey all to herself in Mexico. So she agreed to accompany her, in fact couldn’t wait for some one-on-one time with her best friend.
Time to focus on Lacey, not on Rick. She’d already wasted too much time with Rick, and look where it had gotten her? She’d conjured up ridiculous notions that he cared for her, that she cared for him, as if they had some kind of relationship, when in fact all they’d had was sex.
She might have been nothing but a f**k to him, but guess what? That’s exactly what he’d been to her. A hot guy she could stretch her sexual muscles with. He’d at least been fun for that.
Now that it was over, she’d concentrate on Lacey.
And forget all about Rick.
Easy, right?
Rick dragged his fingers through his hair and paced, trying to figure out how the hell he was going to make this right.
The first thing he did after Ava ran off was pretend it didn’t matter. Lacey glared at him and called him an ass**le, but he just shrugged and Bo laughed. He’d done his job, even if he felt like shit about it.
He’d hurt Ava. He hadn’t meant to. If he’d known she had come into the coffee shop and was within earshot, he’d never said those things to Bo about her.
Bo had set him up, had seen Ava and Lacey coming in and wanted to make sure Ava heard Rick say those things.
He had his cousin to thank for this mess.
But Rick wanted Bo to think that Ava meant nothing to him, to clear the way for his advancement in the Hellraisers, and to make sure nothing stood in the way of Rick being in the right position to find out what Bo was going to do. There was a major drug buy on the line, and Rick needed to make sure it didn’t get cancelled.
The problem was, he did care about Ava. He did worry about her. The best thing that could come out of her eavesdropping would be her falling apart and deciding to run home to her father, thereby clearing the way for him to focus only on what Bo was up to. Ava would be safe then, and that part of his job would be over.
Unfortunately, no such luck. And despite the illegal drug distribution angle, Ava was his primary assignment. His job was to prevent any major connection between Ava and drugs. Bringing in cocaine across the border would be a massive clusterfuck, and probably cost him his job.
He really liked his job. And it was damn time he stopped playing around with Ava and started doing his job. What the hell did it matter what she thought of him? When this assignment was over, he was off to the next one and Ava would be nothing but a distant memory.
After Bo and Lacey took off, Rick went back to his room, grabbed his cell phone and dialed Grange’s number. The general picked up on the second ring, and Rick filled him in on what was going to happen.
“Well, shit,” Grange said. “So your cousin is using his girlfriend as a mule, and has decided to drag the senator’s daughter into his game.”
“Looks that way.”
“It’s obvious Bo doesn’t have any idea who Ava is, does he?”
“I don’t think so. No way would he allow a high-profile person like Senator Vargas’s daughter to carry drugs across the Mexican border. A bust could break the Hellraisers and lead directly to him.”
“Okay. What do you want to do about it?”
Leave it to Grange to drop the ball right at Rick’s feet. “I want to let Ava and Lacey go into Mexico. But I want to be there. I also want to get Bo into Mexico. This is an opportunity to break up a major drug import and distribution ring. I can’t just walk away from this by pulling Ava out.”
Grange went quiet for a few seconds. “Risky. The Feds aren’t going to like this.”