Thankfully before I had to let my imagination roam free, the door flew open, and a chick walked in. She was pink cheeked, puffy lipped, and her breathing was definitely more rapid than normal.
She was also stunningly beautiful.
The television didn't do Riley Deboise justice, with her gorgeous long hair, big blue eyes, and the sort of tanned skin that fake-tan companies spent millions trying to recreate. She was dressed “billionaire chic,” in a power suit, designer heels, and her makeup perfect. She even made the little snowman earrings in her lobes look high class instead of cheesy.
She looked like she had her shit together more than any person I'd ever met, and since she was all of twenty-one, that was saying a lot.
"Dylan!" Riley exclaimed, hurrying forward so she could throw her arms around him.
My heart ached as he jerked her up into his body, holding her tight, as genuine affection softened his face. "Riles! I missed you."
Looking briefly down at the table, I tried not to barf up everything I'd just eaten. No matter what Dylan insisted, there was something between them.
Beck was right behind his girl, not removing his possessive stare from her, and I had to swallow at how dominating his presence was. Just like Riley—and Dylan—there was an otherworldly beauty and strength about him. If someone told me these three had popped straight out of a fantasy novel, I wouldn't have been surprised.
Beck's hair was as dark as Riley's, and his eyes were such a dark gray they almost looked black. The urge to cower under his hooded stare was strong, and it wasn't until Dylan got between us with a snap of "Enough, Beck," that I was able to breathe freely again.
Riley sat in Dylan's chair, so she was right across from me. As soon as she settled, the other two relaxed, like Riley was their sun, and they orbited around her. I wondered what it would be like to have that sort of relationship with anybody.
"Hi," she said, examining me, her eyes no doubt picking up all the ways I looked like shit as her gaze ran across my face. "I'm Riley Deboise."
She didn't hold out her hand, and I didn't offer mine. "I'm Brooklyn Lawson."
"I know. I have an entire file on you."
Of course she fucking did. "Nice," I said, keeping my voice casual. "And I have an entireTimes Youngest Billionairearticle on you. I'm assuming both are correct and accurate."
Her lips twitched, and she seemed to relax forward a little. "Hmmm, not exactly the mouse that Dylan described you as."
Ouch, that fucking hurt.
I felt his eyes on my face, no doubt taking in my reaction to that, so I forced the pain not to show and didn’t look his way once. I just stared at Riley, unblinking. My stare did nothing to intimidate her as she relaxed into her chair, fingers steepling in front of her. "Let me break it down for you, Brooklyn. Delta dabbles in a lot of shit, so much that I don't even know half of it. But we have a very strong interest in weapons—namely the manufacture and distribution of them."
This didn't sound good, and it cemented my terrible feeling about what Blake had done.
"Now, when our parents ran the company, they were more interested in theillegal distributionof said weapons. But we've been cleaning that shit up, and we're mostly above board now."
Mostly. That almost made me smile. Riley would have been more than a little likeable in, you know, different circumstances.
"Your brother stole a prototype weapon of mass destruction." There was a beat of silence after this as she let the horror of that sink in. "We’d just stolen it ourselves from the creator, deep in Mexico, with the aim of getting it out of the public marketplace. But then it went missing during one of his transports."
I blinked because the previous black-suited assholes had been harping on about files, not a weapon of mass destruction. But seriously… The world was so seriously fucked. Blake had absolutely no morals when it came to murdering people and would let the world burn for more money and power.
Taking a deep breath, I leaned forward. "I don't have any weapons."
She nodded. "Oh, we know. The weapon has been recovered, but Blake gave us intel that you were the one who set the entire venture up and downloaded the blueprint from our servers. These blueprints will allow more of these weapons to be manufactured."
She crossed her arms, staring me down, and I mimicked her pose because I was about fucking done today.
"My brother is a lying asshole. I'm eighteen years old; what the fuck would I want with a weapon of mass destruction?"
Riley tilted her head like that was the stupidest thing she'd ever heard. "It could be worth billions on the open market."
I mimicked her again because we were playing some stupid game at this point. "If you have a file on me, you should see that I leave my house to go to school and nothing else."
Except those few times I’d snuck out to fuck Dylan, and if that came back to bite me in the ass again, then... maybe, for the first time, I might wish I'd never met him.
Riley just stared at me, her face totally impassive. And she didn't blink once... not one damn time. It took everything in my power not to squirm under her gaze.
