Her Latin Lover (Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free PDF

happened the night before.
    “I only saw a few pesos on the card table when I left last night. How could Nick have lost $1500?” Mary asked. She poured the chilled, bottled beer into her glass.
    Don Paulo did not feel that he had to explain the rash actions of her idiotic boyfriend, but he did think that she deserved to know what had happened and this time he was not going to mess up the way he told her about it and make her run off again. “You are right; it was only for a few pesos, just a friendly game with my compadres , my friends.”
    “Strange-looking friends. They looked like bandits to me.”
    “Bandits? No! They are just simple farmers and villagers who like to relax over a few drinks and a game of cards. They are men that I have known for years, though they may be a little coarse and sometimes a bit too loose with their tongues. I apologise for their bad language, I was hoping that you couldn’t understand it, but basically they are good men. But not El Leon. He is a bandit of the worst type. He is, I don’t know how you say this word in English, but he is mafia .”
    “Mafia, it’s the same in English, but what has this man got to do with what happened last night.”
    “El Leon came in just as you were leaving. You passed him in the doorway.” Don Paulo could not forget the filthy, lecherous look that El Leon had given Mary. It made the leering of Señor Marcos at the hotel appear like the gurgling of an innocent baby.
    “Yes, I remember him. He had a big gut. I remember trying to squeeze past him to get out.”
    “That’s the man, a big stomach and a big pig-headed attitude. As soon as he came in he insisted on joining the game.”
    “Why didn’t you refuse and tell him to go away.”
    Don Paulo laughed at the idea. “El Leon is not a man that you can refuse easily.” Don Paulo was not a coward and he was willing to stand up to El Leon, but one had to pick and choose one’s battles. “However, it was not long before the other players had lost all their money and dropped out, and it was just him, Señor Kingsley and me. It was then that El Leon started to raise the stakes.”
    “Let me guess, Nick came back to the hotel and got more money out of the safe?” Mary appeared familiar with this side of his character. He wondered, and not for the first time, what she saw in such a man.
    “Nick was certain that he had a winning hand. I knew that he was bluffing. He has some rather obvious ticks, tell-tale habits. Whenever he was bluffing, he drank more. This is not a good tick, as a drunk poker player is a very bad player, and to be honest, Señor Kingsley wasn’t very good to start with.” Unlike Don Paulo, who was known to be an excellent player.
    “I know; it’s just that Nick likes to be where the action is.”
    “He certainly saw some ‘action’ as you call it last night. Originally, I thought that the game was a battle between El Leon and I, a battle that your friend ,” he struggled with the word, “Señor Kingsley got caught up in, but then I realised that it was actually a contest between El Leon and Señor Kingsley, and I was trapped in the middle.”
    Mary didn’t seem to see the significance of what he had said. She took another sip of beer. She was near the end of the glass. Don Paulo wondered if he should order her another drink, but decided against it. He didn’t want her to think that he was trying to get her drunk.
    “So why didn’t you leave?” she asked.
    Don Paulo rubbed the scar on his cheek as he thought about how to answer her question. He had not stayed to help her boyfriend. As far as he was concerned, if a foreigner wanted to get drunk and lose all his money to mafia that was his business, and the mafia were so rich that a few thousand dollars either way wouldn’t make much difference to them.
    He moved his chair nearer to her so that their knees were almost touching, but not quite. The smell of brandy mixed with the smell of her imported beer. Someone nearby