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I think of the promise I made to God in one of my million prayers over the last three days.I’ll be better. I’ll stop making bad decisions.
He sent me a third chance and I need to make good on my promise to him.
I’m going to re-evaluate my life and get it back on track.
To the backdrop of some god-awful rock music, I pad into the kitchen and fix myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I cram it into my mouth, wash it down with a pint glass of water, then fix another to take into my room, all while thinking about my future.
Once this is all over—because I sure as hell know I’m not out of the woods yet—I’m going back to school. I’m going to get my psychology degree and become a licensed therapist. That was my plan all along, until a long-haired man on a motorbike whisked me away from it.
No men on motorbikes this time. Before my unexpected yachting trip, I had already received permission from the University of Pennsylvania to sit the entrance exam for the upcoming intake. And now I have three months—minus a couple of days that I spent chained to a radiator, of course—until I sit it. I need to start studying,hard,if I have any chance of passing—
My plate crashes to the floor, the noise instantly drowned out by the chaos coming from Billie’s room.
Because as I round the corner into the bedroom, there’s a man on my bed. A big, looming man who makes me want to fucking die every time I see him.
Once my savior. Now my worst nightmare.
Lucky.
“Was that for me?” he grunts, resting his elbows on his knees and staring up at me. “Sweet of you, but I’ve already had breakfast.”
A chill ripples up my spine. “How did you get in here?”
He nods past me, down the corridor, to the front door. It’s flapping open in the wind. “Not even a chubb lock,” he tuts. “And what thefuckis that awful music? Sounds like someone drowning a cat.”
I hover in the doorway, torn between running out the front door or picking up a shard of broken plate and jabbing it into him. It dawns on me, nauseatingly heavy, that I’m far too weak for either. “And how did you know I was home?”
Now Lucky smiles. A cruel smile that splits his hard face in two but never meets his eyes. In a different universe, one where he wasn’t the bane of my fucking existence, he’d be handsome. In a rugged, not-sure-if-you’re-going-to-kill-me-or-kiss-me kind of way. Dark hair, green eyes, and a network of tattoos covering each square inch of pure muscle. He lifts a beefy finger to the top-right corner of my room. I follow where he’s pointing and a small red light blinks back at me.
As if I couldn’t feel any sicker.
“I like those red panties you wear,” he muses, scrubbing at the bristly hair along his jaw. “The ones with the lace trim. Sexy.”
“You’ve been watching me.”
“Want to know what I do when I’m watching you?”
He tugs at the bulge in his jeans and winks.
I knew this was coming. I knewhewas coming. But just not so soon. I’ve had my feet on American soil for less than an hour, and with everything else going on—you know, like being kidnapped and severely abused by South African diamond dealers for three days, then suddenly rescued by a mysterious man in black—I haven’t had a chance to think about what would happen when,if, I saw Lucky again.
Knowing he’s not leaving my apartment anytime soon, especially not without answers, I take a deep breath. “I don’t have it, Lucky. I couldn’t find it, and I searched the yachttop to bottom.Really, I scoured every corner of that fucking boat and it wasn’t on board. And even if it was, there’s no way I could get it off the boat anyway, they had body scanners on the dock, and everyone had to walk through them when they disembarked. I swear to you—”
He cuts me off by holding up his hand. “All right, so you didn’t find it. So they beat you that badly for fun?”
I swallow, every cut and bruise burning on my skin. “Yes.”
His eyes are trained on me like a laser. “Don’t lie to me.”
My shoulders sag. “Fine. I tried to take another diamond, hoping it’d suffice for you—”
His roar of laughter cuts me off and makes me wince. “A white diamond?”
I nod.
“You thought a white diamond would make up for not bringing me the Red Shield? The rarest red diamond in the world, with its trilliant-cut, internally flawless structure? Five-point-seven carats of sheer beauty. You thought a few diamonds I could get at the local jewelry store would make up for it?”
I clench my jaw shut. It’s almost impossible to lie to Lucky, but there’s no way I’ll tell him the truth. No, I couldn’t find the supposed red diamond you sent me on board to find, and no, I didn’t try to steal a white diamond to appease you. I tried to steal it for myself. Hoping I could sell it for just enough cash to move to the other side of the country, change my name—again—and never have to see your sneering face another moment in my lifetime.
