by Hannah Ford
My legs were jello, my knees so weak I was afraid I was going to fall over. And he’d been bluffing the whole time. I didn’t know whether to be pissed or relieved.
“I told you,” I said, trying to match his cocky tone, like I’d won, like I’d called his bluff, even though I’d had no idea he was messing with me.
Colt leaned back against the desk, and looked up at the ceiling, like he was thinking it over. “Fine,” he said. “We’ll give it a trial run.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me what the job is first?”
“The less you know, the better.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that for right now, you don’t need to know the specifics of what I’m asking you to do.”
“Because it’s dangerous?” I pressed. I thought of that girl again, her hair in ragged strands, a jagged scratch across her face.
He sighed. “It’s not dangerous, exactly, it’s just better if you don’t know the details.” He looked at me. “Do you trust me?”
“I hardly know you.”
“It’s not going to work if you don’t trust me.”
I opened my mouth to tell him it was impossible to trust someone you’d only known for a few hours, but then I realized something – whatever this job was, whatever he wanted me to do, he must be pretty desperate if he was willing to let me, a girl he barely knew, become involved. It must have been something he needed a certain kind of person to do, and although I didn’t know the exact characteristics of that kind of person, I must have had them.
He wanted something from me. And no matter how successful someone was, no matter how rich, how good-looking, when they wanted something from you, you had power over them. I could get something from Colt. Probably anything I wanted.
And there was only one thing I wanted, one thing I’d ever wanted. The thing I was willing to risk anything for, the thing that had led me here in the first place.
“How did you know where I was staying?” I asked.
“What?”
“How did you know where I was staying?” I asked. “You figured out I was staying at the Walnut Street shelter, you somehow had them agree to send my things to your apartment.”
He sighed and looked at me like I was a child. “Olivia,” he said. “When you have money, you can pretty much do whatever you want.”
He might have thought he was clueing me in to some universal truth, but I already knew this – money got things done. It wasn’t the way the world should work, it was unfair and unjust and you could debate the reasons why for hours. But I wasn’t interested in any of that. All I was interested in was getting him to admit that money could get you things you wanted.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you want. I won’t ask questions. I’ll trust you, I’ll even stay at your apartment. But I want something in return.”
“Of course I’m going to pay you, Princess. What kind of guy do you think I am?” He raised his eyebrows at me and gave me that smarmy grin again, letting me know he knew exactly what kind of guy he was.
“No.” I shook my head. “I mean, yes, I expect to be paid. But I want something else, too.”
“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”
“I want you to find someone for me.”
“Who?”
“Declan Keene.”
Colt frowned. “Who the hell is Declan Keene?”
I raised my chin into the air, daring him to contradict what I was about to say. “He’s the man I’m going to marry.”
End Of Book Two
Look for Book Three, Coming Soon!