Wilde Ink (Wilde Brothers Book 3) Read Free Page A

ever a fun-filled joy-fest for anyone not in a relationship, but hers had gone from lousy to horrific less than an hour after she got out of bed. The building’s hot water was on the fritz again, forcing her to take a lukewarm shower, and then her car had refused to start, leaving her scrambling for a ride to work. Danny had agreed to come to her rescue, but his assistance had come with a price…she’d had to listen to him wax poetic about his new girlfriend for half the trip. When he wasn’t acting like a lovesick puppy, he was trying to ferret out the reason she’d left the wedding reception so suddenly that night. He’d been at it for weeks now, but today was the first time he had her at a disadvantage, locked in his car with no way to escape his questions.
    “Did something happen? No one hurt you or anything, did they?” he asked as they sat in traffic.
    “You did not just ask me that. If someone had tried to hurt me, I’d of hurt them and then called you in as a witness. I told you before, nothing happened. I just wanted to go home.”
    “That’s not what I heard.”
    Lia’s stomach twisted. Had someone seen them together? Not likely, if they had, then the gossip would have already spread through work. So far, that hadn’t happened. Still, she should have never let Nick kiss her. “Since you’re so well fucking informed, what exactly did you hear?”
    Danny lifted a hand off the steering wheel to wave her off. “Whoa, easy. Untwist your panties already. Jenny mentioned that one of Ben’s brothers met someone at the wedding, and she vanished on him, poof. The guy didn’t even know her last name, no phone number, nothing. I just wondered if you knew anything about it, you know, given the way you hightailed it out of the hotel like your hair was on fire.”
    “Not a thing,” she said, lying through her teeth.
    “Please, I’ve known you too long to fall for that poker face of yours. Now, want to try again? Did I mention that the woman’s first name was Lia?”
    “You’re a jerk, you know that?”
    “And you’re insulting the guy who is here on his day off to get you to work on time. Well, as close to on time as this snowstorm is going to permit. Now, ‘fess up. What happened with you and Nick?”
    “Nothing really. We ran into each other outside on the balcony. We talked, he asked if I wanted to go get a drink with him somewhere quieter than the reception, and then he finally mentioned his brother was the groom. I left. That’s it.”
    “You left because he’s related to Ben? Your logic eludes me.”
    “I left because he’s related to Lieutenant David Wilde, my new boss .”
    “Yeah, still not making any sense, but I stopped trying to understand your dating standards years ago. After all, if you’d of had any sense at all, you’d have gone out with me.”
    “You know why I’m not much for dating.”
    Danny sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I do. It’s because you’re still convinced it’s your fault your big brother got killed. You were a kid, Lia. You blew off a shift at the store to go hang out with your friends and something terrible happened. If you’d of been working, nothing would have changed. You couldn’t have stopped what happened. The only difference would have been your parents would have buried their daughter instead of their son.”
    Lia heard every word, but Danny didn’t understand. She should have been there that day. She was supposed to be there, minding the family’s corner store. Instead, she’d gone out partying with her boyfriend, leaving Alex to cover for her, again.
    Alex was the responsible one, always taking care of things, forever nagging her to be more respectful of their parents and to do more to help around the house and the store. Alex was the good, dutiful son. The one her parents were proud of, the one who was going to take over the family business one day. Only the store was robbed that afternoon, and her big brother got himself killed over a