Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I swallow. “Fine. I was having lunch with a friend of mine. CJ Simons. She’s their nanny.”
He raises an eyebrow. “You sure that’s all it was?”
“Why would it be anything else? I don’t even know the Puzos.”
“You know Vinnie Gallo?”
“Vinnie?” My nerves jolt all the way to my fingertips. “What do you want to know about Vinnie?”
Then I realize what this is about. I know what Vinnie’s family does for a living. Somehow I got myself in the middle of it.
“His sister is engaged to my brother.”
“Right. And I believe you were with him last night.”
I say nothing. How the hell would he know? We were at my house. Nobody knows where my house is. I haven’t even been living there.
“So what? He’s a free agent, and so am I.”
“Yes, he is. And you are as well. So I want you to do something for me.”
He’s kidding, right? He’s basically abducted me and taken me to some unknown place when he was supposed to drive me home. This is false imprisonment, kidnapping, you name it.
Then again, he probably knows all of that.
“I hardly know the man,” I say.
“I’d say you know him pretty well in the biblical sense.” He narrows his eyes and looks me up and down. “I’ve got to say, for a bald chick you’re pretty hot.”
My hand absently wanders to my head. “Look, I hardly know him. We had some fun. Is that against the fucking law?”
“Not if you’re both over eighteen, which I know he is.” He trails his gaze down from my head to my breasts. “And I know you are.”
“Exactly what else do you know about me?”
He shrugs. “Everything there is to know, Ms. Bellamy.”
My skin tightens around my body, as if someone wrapped plastic wrap all over me. I feel violated. And not just because I’ve been kidnapped.
He says he knows everything about me, and already I know he’s speaking the truth. He’s said too many things that were accurate to truly be bullshitting me.
“If you really know who I am, you know my father’s got money. A lot of money.”
“I’m not interested in your money, Raven.”
Raven now. Not Ms. Bellamy.
“What are you interested in?”
“Vinnie Gallo.”
“I don’t know what you need from me. You clearly know more about him than I do.”
“True. But you can get close to him.”
“Not if I choose not to. We had one night. It’s not like we’re in a relationship.”
He cocks his head. “Would you like to be?”
His question stuns me. Because the answer on the tip of my tongue is yes, I would like to be in a relationship with Vinnie Gallo. But I know what he does for a living. And I know he’s got his work cut out for him if he wants to bring down his family.
And he said he couldn’t go any further with me and had no intention of doing so. He damn near broke my heart, but I’m not telling this asshole any of that.
“To be honest, I haven’t given it a lot of thought,” I lie.
He leans in, his teeth gritted. “Then get good at pretending. I need you to give him a call. Set a date for, say, this Friday evening.”
“That’s two days from now,” I say, “and I already have another date.”
His eyebrows nearly fly off his head. “Really? Is baldness in now or something?”
I close my eyes, count to ten. I really want to scream again. More than that, I want to claw this guy’s eyes out, but my fingernails are short right now.
I need Robin here. She may have been a tomboy when we were growing up, but she wears her nails long and lethal.
I decide not to dignify his comment with a response.
“Like I said…I’m busy.” He doesn’t need to know that I was going to cancel the date with Brick anyway.
“Cancel it,” he says again.
“No,” I say succinctly.
“I’ll make it worth your while if you cancel it.”
I scoff. “What could you possibly do to make it worth my while? I come from money. I’m recovering from leukemia. I almost died. So unless you can guarantee me that I’ll be leukemia-free—make that free from cancer and any other catastrophic illness—for the rest of my life, I’m not interested.”
He turns his gaze away from me then, looks toward the front of the car.
Right. He says he knows everything about me, but he hasn’t given me a lot of thought. Hasn’t put anything into my perspective. When you’re ill—when you feel like you’d rather die than go through one more day of the pain—you realize that money and material things really mean nothing.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I have them. Money does make life a lot easier. But I would’ve given it all up in a heartbeat to be free from that devastating illness.
“I can guarantee you that your brothers will live.”