Chained (Roman Holiday 1)
“What kind of chance?”
“To explain. In the car. A fair hearing.”
“What constitutes a fair hearing?”
“When I talk, you listen. When I ask you a question, you answer it. Same goes for me. And nobody lies.”
“If I do all this—give you my word that I will evacuate you to your friend’s house—”
“With my belongings,” she interrupted.
The eyebrow lifted.
She tried to look innocent. “I need some clothes to change into. And a few incidentals.”
“—that I will evacuate you to your friend’s house with your belongings, and that I won’t give the demolition order until we’ve had a chance to regroup—”
“Or allow anyone else to demolish it.”
“I don’t allow anyone to demolish my properties but me.”
“What about Noah?”
“He works for me. I supervise.”
“You’re a bit of a control freak, aren’t you?”
His nostrils flared, just for a microsecond.
Ha! Victory. She was getting on his nerves.
“If I commit to all of that, you’ll unlock yourself and come away from here. And you’ll agree not to speak with the press about any of what’s happened.”
“I won’t call any journalists during our regrouping period,” she said. “After that, all bets are off.”
A stiff nod. “I accept. You have my word.”
“Cool.”
He crossed his arms. The rain had turned his shirt black except for a dry red strip beneath his armpits. It stuck to his shoulders and stomach, displaying the outline of each pectoral muscle and the hard, round shapes of his deltoids.
More than excellently proportioned. He was some sort of Latino Canadian god.
But with that blank expression, he didn’t look quite real. They were Ken-doll muscles. Injection-molded PVC.
Not her type. Not even a little bit.
“Turn around,” she said.
“Why?”
“I have to fish the key out of my butt crack, and I don’t want you to watch.”
She looked for a fissure in his Ken-doll perfection, but he gave her nothing. He stood up and turned around.
She felt triumphant. They were leaving, but on her terms. He’d given his word, so he had to take her to Mitzi now, and Ashley would have two days to bait him and sweet-talk him and argue with him on the way there—whatever it took to figure out where he was weakest so she could give Mitzi the ammunition necessary to crack this man wide open.
He couldn’t be hollow inside. There was a beating heart in there somewhere. Blood and hidden organs. Mitzi would know which one to step on, and then Ashley would do it. She’d do whatever it took to get Sunnyvale back.