Page 68 of Vow

“Do you think she married the son of the cartel leader to help her father?”

“I would almost count on it, yeah.”

Haven flinched. “She was only fifteen, though.”

“I’m not sure if that matters to the man she married.”

“Obviously,” Haven whispered. “She had Maria when she was seventeen—she took off when she was pregnant. She told me that much.”

“I think the only way for Valeria to stay safe is to keep moving,” Andino said. “That’s just based on what I know about this particular cartel, and people who escape from them. They can’t stay in one place for very long.”

“She’d been with me for a while, though.”

“Maybe that’s why she left, then.”

Andino didn’t know if that was the case, however. He didn’t like the alternative to that option, though, considering that meant the cartel caught up with Valeria and forced her back to Mexico, and her husband.

A man who Andino suspected wasn’t a good man.

Why would a woman—a pregnant woman—run from him otherwise?

Nonetheless, Andino wasn’t done looking for Valeria Gomez yet. He simply had to be careful given the things he knew about her now. It could be dangerous for him—and her—if the cartel found someone who was actively searching for the wife of the man currently running the operation.

Given the way Haven looked right then next to him, sad and so unsure, he figured it was worth the damn risk, anyway.

“What else are you wondering?” he asked.

Haven shrugged one shoulder. “That was it, really. About Val, anyway.”

“What, you just wanted—”

“Confirmation of my suspicions, I guess. Yeah.”

Andino leaned back on the couch. “I see.”

“What did you get this information for—to leverage it against me?”

Wow.

That was a whole one-eighty there.

Andino respected Haven for having the guts to ask him, though. And considering everything that had happened between the two of them, he understood why she asked, too. Still, she was so far from the truth, it wasn’t even funny.

He stood from the couch, and readjusted the rolled up sleeves of his dress shirt. “I did it because I knew it was bothering you, and maybe I could help. That’s all. Do you want to stay for dinner, or do you have somewhere to be?”

Haven blinked up at him. “I shouldn’t stay, Andino.”

Yeah, he figured she would say that. He also didn’t plan on taking no for an answer.

“Why the hell not?”

She let out a laugh. “Because it always ends the same way.”

Andino arched a brow. “I don’t follow.”

“We fuck, Andino. We fuck, and then I leave. We fuck, and it means nothing. We fuck—that’s what we do.”

Perhaps so, but she never said no.