The Billionaire's Innocent - Part 1. CAITLIN CREWS
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Название: The Billionaire's Innocent - Part 1
Автор: CAITLIN CREWS
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
isbn: 9781474035361
isbn:
It rolled through her like low, ominous thunder and she had to fight to keep herself from flinching. Laurette, who still sat there on the sofa arm studying Nora as if looking for visible cracks, brightened and extended her hands.
And then it was impossible for Nora to pretend this wasn’t happening. That it wasn’t him. Zair was right there, kissing this hard, dangerous woman on one smooth cheek and then the next.
As if they were dear old friends on the best of terms. As if he attended sex slave auctions every night of the week.
Maybe he did.
Nora didn’t know if she wanted to be sick or maybe collapse into tears, but she knew she absolutely could not do either.
This is who he is, she snapped at herself. Deal with it—and deal with it right now. You can’t fall apart here.
But the truth was, Zair was right there beside her, she didn’t want to believe that he could be as evil as he clearly was, and she didn’t think she’d survive the next few moments.
And Harlow was still missing somewhere. Nora didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with any of it.
“This one will do,” she heard him say to Laurette, and she could feel his eyes on her. Intense. Too much. Even worse than usual. “I’ve always had a thing for blondes.”
Laurette’s laugh was horrible. It slid inside Nora and broke something in her into jagged little pieces. “This I know.”
Later, Nora thought, sick and not numb enough and torn apart in a thousand ways she knew she couldn’t let show on her face, she would look back at this moment. Zair’s comment and Laurette’s awful laugh that told her so many things she didn’t want to know.
Later, she could grieve.
But here, now, she had to think about Harlow.
There was a flurry of the French she’d had no idea Zair spoke so fluently, another silvery little laugh from Laurette that left ice shards lodged into her heart, and then Nora and Zair were left standing there alone.
“Look at me,” he said.
It was that same voice that she knew so well. The same voice that had slapped her down so calmly, so ruthlessly, six years ago. The same voice that he’d used only a few weeks ago when she’d been forced to spend an evening with him at an art gala, all smiles and surface and lies, apparently.
It was also an order.
Her heart didn’t stop this time. It beat so hard it made the edges of everything seem to flicker, to fade in and out, and she had to force herself to breathe through it. To stay standing, no matter what.
Because if Zair was a part of this thing the way Harlow’s old faculty adviser Louise had suggested outright back in New York, if all signs pointed to the involvement of a high-ranking member of the Ruyian government and Zair was the only person fitting that description at this party, then Nora had to convince him that she was exactly who she was pretending to be: a bored trust-fund princess having “adventures” on the far side of acceptable behavior—a description that was a touch too close to home. Because he might be her only chance of finding Harlow.
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