Modern Romance December 2020 Books 1-4 by Sharon Kendrick & Maisey Yates & Kali Anthony

Author:Sharon Kendrick & Maisey Yates & Kali Anthony [Kendrick, Sharon & Yates, Maisey & Anthony, Kali]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-10-12T22:01:11+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

LUCY HAD KNOWN nothing but fear for most of her life and was used to it. But the fear that gripped her as she sat opposite Vincenzo de Santi was unlike any she’d ever known.

And she couldn’t work out why.

Her father’s men had been dealt with efficiently—she’d seen just how efficiently on that camera feed—and so there shouldn’t have been any reason for her to remain scared. Yet she was, and now it had less to do with her father than it did with the man sitting opposite her.

He was still lounging there in that casual pose, to all intents and purposes bored. But his eyes glittered like black jewels and they did not move from her face, not even once. He was all coiled menace and a ruthlessness that she could almost feel like ice against her skin.

She hadn’t expected to be confronted about her own crimes, not so soon, though in retrospect she should have. But she didn’t like having to think about the things her father had made her do and, since she was very good at not thinking about certain things, she’d simply pushed it out of her head to be dealt with later.

Except later had now come. And Vincenzo de Santi calmly stating that she was complicit in her father’s crimes wasn’t something she could deny.

But she’d told de Santi the truth. She hadn’t been given a choice. It was either she did what her father asked, or there were consequences. Survive, that was what her mother had told her and so that was what she’d done, any way she could.

Maybe one day there would be time to address her crimes, but she would see her father taken down first if it was the last thing she did.

Yet it wasn’t her guilt or otherwise which scared her. It was something else. Something about Vincenzo de Santi himself that she couldn’t put her finger on.

She wasn’t used to men. Her father kept her secluded in Cornwall, her every move watched by the guards he employed twenty-four-seven. She had a few online friends, but she made sure any identities she used online were heavily cloaked. She didn’t really see anyone but the guards in real life, and she kept away from them, because they made her uncomfortable. It would have been a lonely existence if she’d let herself think about it, but she didn’t ever let herself think about it. Never let herself see the bars of the cage she was locked in. Never contemplated the tightrope she walked between being useful enough for her father so he’d keep her alive, and refusing to do certain things that would anger him and make him deal out the same punishment he’d given her mother.

Her attention must always be on what was directly in front of her, never looking right or left, or anywhere else. Otherwise she would lose her balance and fall to her death.

She stared hard at Vincenzo de Santi, not letting her focus waver, not paying any attention to the new fear that lived inside her, just under her skin.

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