Baldacci New Book Novels & Stories

Chapter 11 I stared at the glossy tablet screen in Matteo’s hand, gripping my glass of scotch so hard the crystal groaned in protest. The headline on The New York Observer's digital front page was practically screaming in bold, black letters: THE ICE KING THAWS: JULIAN VANCE UTTERLY BEWITCHED BY NEW BRIDE.

Priscilla sighed in annoyance and replied, "I know, I just assumed we were on the same page." "Nope. We're not even on the same book," Matteo quipped sarcastically. "My book is called, The Blind Ceo and your book is called an insane woman with privacy issues," Priscilla rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe the titles Matteo had come up with. "Aren't you being a tad bit dramatic," Priscilla mocked. "I thought that was for women," "Says the woman with a secret office she uses to spy on people for fun," Matteo retorted.

A BEAUTIFUL THING TO RUIN BOOK 2 Intro: Elisia Moretti is a foreign student in Italy living on borrowed stability—her education, her visa, her future all tied to a fragile sponsorship. When it is suddenly withdrawn, her carefully built life begins to collapse in silence. Niccolò Valmonti notices her at a formal event weeks earlier. She doesn’t belong in his world, and that is exactly why she stays with him. Untouched, proud, unaware of the power watching her.

There it was. I kept my face arranged in its stillness. “Gone,” I said simply. “He left yesterday.” Matteo looked up. Mildly surprised. “Yesterday? He didn’t say anything to me.” “He left a note.” “Mm.” He looked back at his phone. Scrolled something. Then, already halfway to the next thought, “Must have been the baby.” I looked at him. “What?” “His woman.” Matteo waved his hand vaguely, the gesture of a man discussing something that barely registered. “Some woman he’s been with in London. She was pregnant apparently. Must have gone into labor.” He took a drink. “He mentioned it months ago. I forgot about it.”

He rushes towards me in concern, and just then I hear Brandon's voice call out to me from the door. "Let's go," I say frantically to Baldwin. He wraps an arm around me and leads me to the car. Just as he opens the car door, Brandon reaches us. "Get your fucking hands off my wife!" He barks. I take a deep breath and turn around to face him. Baldwin gives me a questioning look, and I nod at him to assure him that I can handle this, after which he stands back. The single gesture causes the tears that I have been holding back to fall. That Baldwin would be willing to go against Brandon and risk losing his job to make sure that I'm fine is more than I would have expected.

Just slower. * When I got back, I tucked the envelope into a hollowed-out book on the bottom shelf. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it. I had one more chance. And Aiden, he could never see it coming. But that night, he was waiting. Not in the living room, not in the bedroom, but in the reading nook off the balcony, where I used to sit with tea and pretend I was someone else. His silhouette was sharp against the glass. One leg crossed over the other, a drink in hand, watching the skyline like it jad secrets he already owned.

I throw the door open quickly to escape their baradment. While on my way through the stone hallways that seem as though they are written from a fairytale, I pass a room with the television blaring in sound. "Benjamin Lanzetta under investigation by NYPD regarding the disappearance of two NYU students." I pause in my tracks. Investigation? Why are they publicizing the investigation if he hasn't been detained? Oh yes. I nearly forgot. He's the mafia boss of New York.

I said at last, “I will deal with it when it does.” Joe held my gaze for a second, then gave a respectful nod and left the study. When the door closed behind him, I stood alone in the quiet room and looked toward the staircase outside, as if I could somehow see through walls. Upstairs was a woman who had walked into my life by accident and changed its shape in less than two days. And for the first time in years, I found myself thinking not about the bargain I had made, but about the cost of wanting more than the bargain allowed.

The way his touch spread like wildfire, her boss may as well have been touching her elsewhere—where her breasts ached, where her nerves sparked, and where she felt a hot, painful hollowness. ​He released her so abruptly she almost stumbled. ​Still reeling, Elizabeth sank into her seat like a deflated balloon. Her pulse thundered in her ears as she fumbled to strap on her seat belt. His intense gaze from across the aisle became a living, breathing thing. ​"Does a man's interest offend you?" he asked. ​Feeling flushed, she shoved her purse onto her lap. "Did you know Lyon has over two million people now?" she blurted out, frantically stuffing her printed maps and vocabulary lists back into her

Something felt off about her messages—I didn’t know why, but my heart was pounding as I stood in front of the TV. My hands trembled as I reached for the remote. I stared at the screen as I slowly sat down on the sofa. When the TV turned on, the news report appeared: “One of the billionaire bachelors, Wyatt Wolfenstein, is rumored to be getting married to Phoebe Escamillas, heiress of the Escamillas Group. A source spotted the two of them at a café yesterday,” said the news anchor, and they showed a picture of the two inside the café—exactly how I saw them yesterday. The image was just as I remembered it. A sharp pain shot through my heart from what I saw. It felt like my heart was being pier