Mack cleared her throat. “Just in case you ever want to stay over, I’ll show you the guest rooms.”

“Oh, okay.” Flora felt the awkwardness, awkward because that was probably what they both wanted.

There was a corridor just off where the snooker table was at the far end. Mack opened a door and said, “This is the main bathroom.”

It was a really nice modern bathroom with a beautiful, large shower.

“It’s lovely, Mack.”

“There’s also an en suite in my bedroom and one of the guest rooms. I won’t show you my room just now because it’s messy, but I’ll take you to the guest rooms.”

They were both stylish and neat. “It doesn’t look like you have too many overnight guests.”

“None,” Mack said flatly. “You’d be my first.”

Flora made her decision after that answer and wanted to say it quickly before she chickened out. “I’ll come to poker night.”

Mack’s face lit up. “You will?”

“Yes. It’ll be difficult for me, but it’s important that I meet some of your family, because I…It’s hard to say.”

“I know. I always know.”

She did, didn’t she. Mack was becoming everything to her.

Chapter Fourteen

Mack didn’t usually do nerves, but she was nervous tonight. Flora was going to come to poker night and meet Nikki, the first step in meeting her family, and staying the night at her flat. She was nervous but excited, and that was why Mack knew she was falling in love. She wasn’t the only one who was excited. When Dexter realized what road they were turning into, he started to whine and bark.

Mack looked to the seat beside her and smiled. “Okay, we’ll be at Flo’s soon, I promise.”

Dexter’s love of Flora made the love she had for her all the more intense. Mack looked at herself in her driver’s mirror and said, “You do love her, don’t you?”

Maybe this was part of wanting to step back, to have a normal business—to give herself room to find love with someone like Flora. As much as she now realized that she could never truly step away from the business, Mack couldn’t live a life with Flora and be a full-time Sharkey enforcer.

Being out most nights at the club, casino, and pub, coming home at all hours with blood on her hands, figuratively and literally, being everything that her title of Mack the Knife entailed—there was no way she could do that to Flora. Flora needed safety and support, and she was determined to be that for her.

Mack pulled her black Land Rover into Flora’s driveway and saw a For Sale notice next to the upstairs flat. Interesting.

“You stay here, Dex. I’ll just go and get Flo.”