Dirty Lies

THE ANGER OF ANNALISA

Bathed in an aqua glow, with pale wood and white leather seating, the lounge was on the top floor of the Miami high-rise.

It overlooked the city's glittering downtown from one bank of windows and the blue expanse of Biscayne Bay from another.

The kind of place we would have gone on our honeymoon.

Instead, I was alone at the bar, searching for information on him.

Luca Rossi.

The man who should have been my husband.

I scanned the guys ordering craft beers and bourbon at the bar, sizing up which one might lead me to him. This was the obvious place to hunt for information. His only living relative, his uncle, Federico Rossi, owned a law firm that took up three floors of the skyscraper. A woman working the newsstand downstairs said this was where the firm's lawyers drank after work. Surely someone would know a little about the top attorney and his family—like where they lived and if Luca was indeed in Florida.

If they didn't, I could entice them to find out.

As I sipped my mojito, I studied the people in the reflection of the mirror hanging behind the rows of liquor bottles. Too old. Too fat. Too nervous-looking. I appraised myself in the mirror and was pleased my hair had stayed so straight and shiny, and that my low-cut silk blouse had long sleeves to hide the scars from the tiny cuts etched into my forearms.

I tapped my burgundy-painted fingernails on the glass. Which one of these men looked most like a lawyer? With their expensive suits and carefully groomed facial hair, any of them were candidates. I chose the most earnest-looking: a tall, younger man with close-cropped dark hair.

He was cute, which was a prerequisite. I would probably have to fuck him later.

Tossing my long hair, I fixed my eyes on the man. A beat after I caught his gaze, I smiled, closed-lipped, then lowered my eyes demurely.

Within minutes, he was next to me, two mojitos in hand.

"You have beautiful eyes," he said, setting the drink in front of my empty glass.

"Thank you," I purred. I took the mojito and raised it to his, and the glasses touched softly against one another.

"You work in the building?" the man asked.

I shook my head and launched into my prepared talking points. "Not yet. I'm interviewing at the accounting firm on the tenth floor. I think it went well. You?"

"I'm a lawyer with the Rossi firm. We're on floors twenty through twenty-three."

Perfect.

"Oh, the firm that advertises on television all the time?" I opened my eyes wider, but not too wide. I tended to look manic when my eyes were too big. Act impressed when he talks. Laugh at the right moments. My mother had taught me how to respond to men, and those charms never failed.

"Yep. That one. What's your name?"

"Anna. Yours?"

"Carlos."

"Thank you for the mojito, Carlos. It's delicious."

"Anna. You're not Cuban like everyone else in Miami. I can tell. Where are you from? You have a different accent."

I grinned. I knew I couldn't hide my heritage, but also suspected it would play to my advantage. "Italy. You?"

"Nice. An Italian girl. I'm like everyone else here. Cuban."

"Is it true what they say about Cuban men?"

He licked his bottom lip and grinned when I flashed my sexiest smile. "What's that?"

"That they're as good in bed as they are on the dance floor."

He laughed hard. "Maybe you'll find out."

Yes, maybe. And later, if I had one more mojito and looked at Carlos the Cuban lawyer just right when he entered me, I'd be able to imagine he was Luca. I'd done it so many times in the past, with so many different men.

Soon, I'd be able to stop pretending and have the real thing again.

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