Page 64 of Sweet Wicked Vows
Straight back to business.
I swore I was going to need a neck brace by the end of our year together.
“Okay, I’ll be completely out of my depth with all that, but if you send me anything I need to know beforehand, I’ll read it today.”
“It’ll be fine. They will do most of the talking, and then we can meet after to discuss how to move forward before giving them any answers.”
“Just keep me right and try not to let me make a huge fool of myself.”
He popped the last bit into his mouth. “That’s what you married me for.”
I married him to help me survive the next year, not to have mind-bending orgasms with his fingers buried in my mouth in dark cloakrooms.
Make no mistake, you’re mine whether this is real or not.
But it wasn’t real, none of it was. We were two strangers using each other for nothing more than business gains.
A business contract with an expiry date.
One year and then he’d be gone.
Blurring those lines, making it complicated, wasn’t worth it. Though my body leaned toward him, my stupid heart fluttering at every little glimpse of the man beneath the hard exterior that broke through, my mind knew better. After all, when all was said and done, there would only be one heart truly broken at the end.
A heart that was barely mended.
“Evelyn?” Jaxon’s voice cut through my thoughts. “Where did you go,douceur?”
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?” I asked abruptly.
“Non.”
“The Junipers always have me for the holidays, and they’ve asked for you to come.” I ran my teeth along my bottom lip. “I understand it’s a family holiday, and you probably want to spend it with your own family and not with me and a bunch of strangers. But Lola’s mom was pretty adamant about you joining.”
“I’ll be there.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Perfect. I’ll let her know.”
So much for keeping it strictly business.
I never was very good at listening to my own advice, not when my heart thumped louder in his presence and demanded to be seen.
Chapter TwentyOne
‘DIAMONDS: GIRLS OR MOBSTERS BEST FRIENDS?’
Reynolds’ links with certain unsavory characters made it onto the six o’clock news. A certain file containing receipts of mysteriously large amounts of money being transferred to a well-known affiliate of a criminal organization found its way toCapitol Press.
Honestly, the encryptions and security Reynolds had on his computers was laughable.
It took a couple hours of digging through the databases before I decided to turn my attention to Kerry Zhang. She was loyal to Reynolds and the company. It only made sense that she was trusted to keep certain information away from prying eyes.
Her computer hard drive was a dream come true.
Amongst the many folders, buried deep, was the first jackpot.
A diamond tycoon and an underground criminal organization—it was a match made in heaven.
There was no actual proof of what the payments were for. Though I suspected it may have been linked to something as boring as tax fraud. It was enough to create speculation.