Michaela
Deal.
Keira
Okay, I can wait a few hours.
I can imagine the grin on her face.
Michaela
I’ll text when I’m about to come back.
Keira
Sounds good. Have fun.
I doubt it.
I’m sure Keira thinks I’m crazy, but I can’t talk to her until I talk to Phoenix. I used the excuse of a heat-induced headache as a copout to stay locked up in the guesthouse. In reality, I wanted to research the hell out of Phoenix König. Not that I had to since Daddy sent me a dossier compiled by the same private investigators who found dirt on my soon-to-be-ex-stepmother.
Pretty CIA.
When Daddy is facing a financial conundrum, he takes a page right out of a thriller novel. I’m impressed. There’s so much more than meets the eye about King König. I store my laptop and run out the door. The last thing I want is for the chauffeur to honk. Keira is suspicious as it is.
As I sit in the back of the chauffeured dark-blue Bentley, my mind wanders. This morning, I woke up with the intention of enjoying Rhys’s spectacular pool and spending the day hanging out with my friend while working on my tan. Several hours later, my world is turned upside down. I’m on my way to meet a man I swore to never see again––a man who holds my fate in the palm of his hands.
The joke is on me.
If being in Phoenix König’s presence for a mere twenty minutes sent my system into overdrive, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like spending a few hours with him.
There’s no turning back.
He holds the bargaining chips, and he has the power to play me like a puppet. I want to understand what my future will look like.
After talking to my father, I oscillated between anger at Thana, bafflement at how Daddy shut me out of something pretty freaking important, and fear at how I unknowingly became the last pawn my father had to play. But, like Daddy, I made a promise to my mother on her death bed. I will honor it even if it kills me.
I brush my hand over my dress, smoothing the fabric.
I shouldn’t care this much about how I look, but that doesn’t stop me from pulling out my compact to check my makeup. Again.
What am I doing?
I don’t give a flying flip about King Kong Tycoon’s opinion of my wardrobe.
I’m about to slide my compact back into my handbag, when a sign catches my eye.
Marina del Rey Harbor?
I stick my nose to the window and gawk at the incredible view.
We’re meeting at a seaside restaurant?
Phoenix said he wanted us to meet in a private setting, this isn’t what I had pictured in my mind.
As the car crawls to a stop, the door flies open.
I inhale through the nose and exhale.
