“I’ll remind you I’ve got two redheads waiting in my bed,” she told Rule. “Shall I go home? Or do you want me to finish up?”
I met his stare once more, trying to read his thoughts. The man was too guarded, too mysterious. He could’ve been thinking about petting puppies or cutting eyeballs out of doll heads. It was impossible to tell.
“Tell one of those redheads to scope their house, then finish up,” he finally said, his eyes never leaving me.
“Calling now,” Rhyan shouted back before disappearing again.
“So you’ll do it?” I asked, lowering my voice so my mother didn’t hear. “Fake my kidnapping?”
Rule took a step closer, then another, until I swore I could feel the heat of his body. I fought the urge to move back because I was the one who’d instigated this with my request. It really was simple. He could stash me away somewhere and have someone demand a fake ransom. Once the insurance company paid the money, he could have it, and I could go back to living in a world where my mother called fixers when her sexcapades went awry.
That was something I would tuck away in the mental box marked CRAZYSHITso I could pull it out and deal with later.
I gasped when Rule put a finger under my chin and tilted my head back. I held his stare, noticing for the first time a glitter of gold in his dark eyes. Like stardust sprinkled in coffee. His lips … those perfectly shaped lips were close enough it would only take one misstep for them to be on mine, for him to rock my world with a kiss.
He remained motionless for a moment, holding my stare. He was so close I could smell the faintest hint of … I don’t know. It was familiar. While I waited for him to say something—or yes, kiss me—I focused on the smell until I placed it. It only took a few seconds before I realized it was Yves Saint Laurent Libre perfume. He wasn’t wearing it, but it wasonhim.
Was that where he came from? Some woman in his bed?
Was he married? He wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean anything.
Was I over here fantasizing about a married man?
“K and R insurance doesn’t work like that,” he said smoothly.Toosmoothly. “Your mother knows this because it backfired on her once already.”
I frowned, trying to decipher his meaning and get the scent of his girlfriend’s perfume out of my nostrils.
His eyes bounced over my face as though he was waiting for something to click for me. It didn’t. That didn’t make sense.
“Just ask her what happened when the guys she hired to kidnap you the last time learned they weren’t getting paid because she didn’t get the money she thought she would.”
I backed up a step but had nowhere to go. I was trapped between his big body and the wall.
No.
No, no, no.
He was wrong. There was no way my mother would’ve done that.
“She wouldn’t,” I whispered, even as I realized that was exactly something Monica Quinn would do.
“She did.”
There was nothing in his expression to say he was lying. Why would he? Why would he tell me something like that when I was trying to solve his problem? He wanted his fee, and my mother needed it to make this go away. Fake kidnapping plus fake ransom equals three million dollars. Easy peasy.
Or maybe not because the glint in his eyes said he knew what he was talking about.
The thought that Monica had hired someone to hold me captive in a dark, dank basement, refusing me everything but the bare basics to survive for two weeks, made my stomach turn. She was capable of plenty, but turning on her own daughter? That was a new low. Had she told Diggy to torment me? Was she the reason a cold chill ran down my spine when I heard a loud noise?
My stomach lurched, but I choked down the bile rising in my throat.
“Take me anyway,” I said, my jaw hardening. “Do whatever you want with me. I can work it off.”
His eyes glittered with amusement, but his expression didn’t change. “Work off three million?”
“Yes.”
“What is it you do that’ll earn you three mil?”
