Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99191 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 331(@300wpm)
He chuckled, the sound curling through the space between them like a living thing. “Believe me, if that was my main goal, I have several people better suited.” He shot her a look. “Theoretically, of course.”
“Theoretically. Sure.” She looked around the inside of the town car. It reeked of understated wealth. The leather seats were as soft as butter, and there was a retractable window between the backseat and the driver. With it raised, she couldn’t see more than an outline of the man’s head. It was entirely possible they were taking her to a secondary location for nefarious purposes, but Aiden had had a point earlier. Knowing that he could have tried to kill her several times over during their walk shouldn’t have comforted her—but it did.
Charlie leaned back against the seat, rotating to face him fully. “You have me alone and at your mercy. Enough circling. What, exactly, do you want from me?”
Heat flared in his eyes, a fierce flame of interest that she’d have to be extremely naive to misinterpret. He banked it almost immediately, the cool mask back in place, but it had been there. She was sure of it.
Aiden looked out the window. “As I said, I need your information, and I need you to be a distraction.”
“A distraction.” What the hell was he talking about?
“Yes.” His mouth tightened. “I need my enemies—our enemies—to underestimate both of us.”
She tensed. “If you need a distraction, then you should have hired someone better suited to the job. I’m not a sideshow circus freak.”
“I’m aware.” He finally looked at her again, and his expression was no less intense, for all that he seemed to be trying to rein himself in. “There is no one else, Charlie. You know the players, and you know what’s at risk if we fail. As a relative unknown in this game, you can move through them without raising suspicions. But you have a brain.” He reached out and touched her temple.
She swatted him away, not liking the fact that she could feel his finger against her skin even after he no longer touched her.
Even as a so-called distraction, it didn’t make sense that he’d need her. But she hadn’t made much progress in her own investigation, though she’d had access to several decades’ worth of police files. Charlie narrowed her eyes. It would be child’s play for Aiden to get a hold of those files. If he didn’t have ins with the NYPD, his family did with the Boston cops. All it would take was a favor asked by one of the cops on his payroll and he’d have all the information she had—more, since there had undoubtedly been new information in the last four years.
It didn’t make any more sense than his supposedly needing her to be a distraction did.
There was something there, something she was missing. She crossed her legs. “Elaborate.” The more she got him talking, the better chance she had of figuring out his true purpose in inviting her into his game.
“Romanov wants my baby sister. The reasons behind it are complicated, but the end result is that if I push back, he will take us to war, and both New York and Boston will bleed as a result. While there are benefits to war, our family has lost more than its fair share in casualties, and I refuse to lose another person.”
It sounded quite noble…if she forgot who she was talking to.
Aiden O’Malley and Dmitri Romanov were two sides of the same coin. Aiden wasn’t some white knight charging in to deliver justice to her out of the goodness of his heart. She hadn’t been able to find out much about the O’Malleys, but they had a reputation for being ruthless and they’d ruled one-third of Boston’s underground for a few generations, which was impressive when considering how often power changed hands in other cities. She studied his button-down shirt, taking in the cuff links glinting at his wrists. Cuff links, for God’s sake. “I’m still missing the part where you need me.”
He met her gaze directly. “You’ll be my fiancée.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind? Getting married is your brilliant plan? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Calm down. I’m not actually marrying you, so you can get that look off your face. The only way you can move freely—relatively speaking—in my world is if you’re mine. A girlfriend won’t cut it—an engagement is required.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” She made an effort to smooth out her tone. They’d been talking a grand total of ten minutes, and the fact that he’d had every emotion and reaction locked down only made her feel more unrestrained. “I don’t want to move in your world.”
He didn’t seem too bothered by her shock and denial. “If people think that it’s a whirlwind romance, they’ll believe that I’m thinking with my cock instead of my brain. The frenzy at the beginning of a relationship distracts even the most focused person, and Romanov will know it—and underestimate the situation as a result. You’ll have to be convincing, of course. Not even my family can know your true purpose there.”