AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Had it only been that morning I’d run from my life? “I may have made a huge mistake today.”
“Maybe. Only time will tell, and if you take control of things, you can make it so it’s just the opposite of that. Your greatest triumph. Your sisters are dependent on your father for their existence. You don’t have to be, not anymore.”
I supposed that was one way of looking at it. “They help him run the company now. Sure, it was nepotism, but they’re bright and he knows how capable they are. Who can you rely on if not your family?”
“You couldn’t rely on them. Not one of them.” He turned from the view of the sunset to view me. “What do you think, Layla? Pretend to be my girlfriend, and I’ll put you on a newpath. No one even has to know it’s fake if you don’t ever want them to.”
I winced. “I really hate lying.”
“Except to yourself, apparently.”
Okay, I’d had enough. I pointed my finger at him. “Watch it. You know I know how to smack you.”
His smile was slow. “Yes, you do.”
“So, watch it. You don’t have to like me, but I’m not taking shit from you. Other people, okay, they’ve earned the right, but you are going to watch your mouth. You can think it, don’t say it.”
Zeke lifted an eyebrow. “Look at that, she has a backbone.”
“Last warning. Next snarky remark, and I’m going to slap you.”
He needed an answer. I was either agreeing to this with a man who could alternate between taking care of me and telling me I was pathetic. Or I was getting on an airplane and leaving Paris, putting this behind me, as I begged my father for another chance. The thought put a bad taste in my mouth. Sour, disgusting. I almost considered spitting over the side of his balcony, but to do so would go against everything I knew about behavior.
“I’ll do it.”
He nodded once, not looking at me as he turned back toward the ever-disappearing sunset. “Good. Tell me what your situation is. Leave nothing out. If you owe money to drug dealers or the mob or a tribal leader in the middle of the Sudan, tell me all of it. Think of me as your personal confessor. I need the whole picture to figure out what to do.”
I patted my hands on the balcony. It was hard to talk about myself. Oh, I could interview with the best of them. Platitudes and saying nothing of import. But this? It was different. “How doI know you can do what you say you can do? If you were so good at this, why would you need me?”
“Restraint.”
That made no sense. “What?”
“When you’re as rich as your father and I am, you know people who do all kinds of things. Whether you wanted to or not. At some point, you have to hire a security company who knows another company… Anyway, the reason I am trying to use you to get your father to dig his own grave is because I chose several years ago not to use the power I have to end his life.”
A shiver moved through me. Was this for real? “You thought about killing my father?”
“Yes, and I have it on good authority that he has considered doing the same to me. More than once. Both of us are exercising a great deal of restraint. He ignores my messages and pretends I don’t exist unless he absolutely must speak to me, and I do the same for him. We’re at a stalemate not killing each other. Restraint.”
I wanted to puke, and not from the delicious food I’d had earlier. “That can’t be real. No. Business people don’t…”
He shook his head, effectively silencing me. “Business is the number one reason for that kind of thing. Well, business and passion. People kill for that, too. Drug dealers and cartels…they’re all in business.”
My heart rate kicked up. It felt like I’d run a marathon. “Is that the kind of thing you and my father do?”
“No, princess.” He looked away from me. “We are not in drugs or guns. Or anything like that. Just good old-fashioned runs-the-world business. And we’re restraining ourselves from ending the other one, permanently.”
If he wanted me to believe he could help me, he’d done that. If he really knew the kind of people who could do all that, then he probably could. I hated every second of it, and I wantedout of this life I hadn’t known I was living on the outskirts of, immediately if not sooner.
But I had problems that had to be solved. And if dealing with gorgeous, and now scary, Zeke Scott could do that for me, then so be it. I’d use him as he used me at the same time, and we’d both walk away with what we wanted.
“I don’t want my sisters hurt.” I’d said that before, and I was sure I would again. In a world where I cared about nothing and no one cared about me, they were the exception. Maybe they weren’t perfect, but they were mine.
He nodded. “I’m not taking your father’s fortune, Layla. When I’m done, I’ll just have what’s mine. He’ll have his half, and he and your sainted sisters are welcome to create whatever business they want with it.”
“Don’t call them that.” I didn’t like it, and I wasn’t going to put up with him disparaging them.
“Layla.” The sun was setting on him and this conversation. He wanted my answers, and I had to give them to him.
