The Playboy’s Dangerous Bet의 모든 챕터: 챕터 31 - 챕터 40

LIVThe antique diamond on my left hand feels ten pounds heavier in the daylight.It’s eight-thirty on Monday morning, and I am sitting on a wooden stool at the small island in Claire’s sunlit kitchen above the coffee shop, nursing a mug of black coffee while my sister packs Lily’s lunchbox for school.After shutting my curtains on Klaus’s town car at one-thirty in the morning, I got maybe two hours of broken, nightmare sleep.Every time I closed my eyes, I saw newspaper clippings, crimson silk, and cold blue eyes staring up at my third-floor window from the dark street.By seven o'clock, I couldn't stand the silence of my own apartment for another minute."Lily, I swear to God, if you don't put your snow boots on in the next thirty seconds, you are walking to the bus stop in your socks!" Claire calls down the narrow hallway, slicing the crusts off a strawberry jam sandwich."I can't find the left one!" Lily yells back from the living room."Check under the couch where you kicked it y

LIVRoom 412 is half the size of my bedroom and smells overwhelmingly of antiseptic and starch.Our father, Arthur Mercer, is propped up against three flat hospital pillows with his left leg suspended in a fiberglass cast and an IV line taped to the back of his hand.Even at fifty-eight, with silver threading through his thick hair and deep lines bracketed around his mouth from twenty years of living out of airport terminals, he still looks like a man who hates sitting still."I told the paramedics it was just a sprain," Dad grumbles, his voice raspy from the anesthesia tubes as Claire fusses with the edge of his blanket. "A patch of black ice on an overpass and suddenly everyone acts like I’m ninety years old.""You rolled a four-ton SUV twice, Dad," Julian says dryly, leaning his broad shoulders against the windowsill with his arms crossed over his jacket. "Forgive us for interrupting your Monday morning itinerary.""Julian has a point," I say softly, stepping up to the opposite sid

LIVI scrubbed my hands three times with scalding water in the restroom on the fourth floor before walking back into my father's hospital room.The soap washed the crimson off my skin and out from under my fingernails.It did nothing to stop my hands from feeling like they are still covered in Klaus’s blood."So I told the nurse we’ll bring him his reading glasses and his laptop charger tonight," Claire says from the driver’s seat of her Honda SUV.She checks her blind spot as she merges onto Michigan Avenue."Once they move him out of post-op observation, he’s going to drive the whole floor crazy if he doesn't have his laptop." Claire adds."I'll have my assistant send over a basket of fruits this afternoon," Ben says warmly from the seat right beside me. "And some decent coffee so you girls don't have to drink that vending-machine coffee tonight."I stare out the passenger-side window at the gray slush sliding past the curb.Because Claire’s front passenger seat is buried under thre

LIVIn the entryway mirror, Ben’s phone slips smoothly back into his trouser pocket.Not a single muscle in his face changes.When he pulls back from the hug a second later, his hazel eyes are warm, clear, and brimming with patient devotion.If I hadn't watched the screen light up in the glass behind my own head, I would have sworn on my life I was looking at a man in love."I hate to leave you alone right now," Ben says softly.He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear as he reaches for his overcoat on the wall hook. "Especially after the morning you've had. Select a place for dinner tonight and we can order in. I just need to run by my office for three or four hours first to sign off on the post-audit paperwork from New York."Post-audit paperwork.More like a thirty-minute phone call to Manhattan so Roxy doesn't freeze your bank accounts before five o'clock."Go handle your office," I say, forcing a tired, appreciative smile onto my mouth. "Honestly, Ben, I’m so wiped out I’m

LIVTwo hours later, as I step off the fourth-floor elevator at Northwestern Memorial with my father’s overnight duffel bag slung over my shoulder, Klaus’s voice is still echoing against the inside of my skull like a low current of electricity.When I finally take that dress off you, Olivia... I won't stop.After he hung up on me, I spent forty-five minutes wiping my laptop’s cloud drive clean, revoking every shared link Ben ever set up, and moving my manuscript files onto an encrypted external thumb drive that currently lives at the bottom of my zippered coat pocket.It didn't make me feel any safer.Because Klaus didn't sound like a man who just lost his surveillance feed.By the end of the week, you won't be hiding your pages from me. You’re going to be sitting across a desk handing them to me yourself.What the hell did that mean?Why would I ever hand my manuscript to the owner of an underground strip club?I shake my head, trying to clear the static from my brain as I round the