Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 440(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Luc was sitting at the kitchen table drinking his coffee, staring at his phone.
“Have you seen this?” I handed him my tablet, bouncing on the balls of my feet with excitement. “She is okay! Have you heard from her? When can we go pick her up, or have her picked up?”
He looked at my tablet for a moment, then, without a word, handed me his phone. The screen showed a similar website, but it was all wrong. Where I had seen a beautiful woman dressed in the finest gown enjoying a party, in its place was a picture that was pornographic and vulgar.
The headlines had changed too, and even the tone of the article.
“She isn’t safe. DuBois sent me this to taunt me. I already called her offices, and they think this article”—he handed me back my tablet and I swapped it with him for his phone— “was written by Olivia. And that she was the one to send it in. Marksen has made it impossible for us to say the woman in the photos isn’t her, that they were photoshopped or made by some AI.”
“Oh ...” My heart sank, and I felt so guilty for the thoughts I’d had, for even a moment, thinking this was some ploy on her part for attention. “I still don’t understand why he is doing this. We were never close, there was never any chemistry, I don’t ...”
Harrison walked into the breakfast room, already in a three-piece suit, ready for work. It made me feel a little underdressed in my white silk nightgown. At least it was one that went down to my knees and had a more modest top. It did have a matching robe that I forgot to grab in my excitement.
To be fair, I had told Luc that I would be spending our first few weeks of marriage completely nude while we were at home alone. But with Olivia’s kidnapping the mood had shifted a bit, and people had been coming and going. I knew Luc would prefer to see me naked, but he would lose his mind if another man saw me naked. I was fairly certain the only reason he didn’t have a violent reaction to Harrison seeing me in my nightgown was because we were related.
“You wanted to see me?” Harrison asked him, kissing my temple as he passed me to take a seat at the breakfast table. I slid my tablet onto the counter and moved to sit next to Luc, reaching for the French press in front of him to pour myself and Harrison a cup of coffee.
“Yes.” Luc flicked his phone off and set it down on the table. “I wanted to know if you have anything to do with my sister’s disappearance.”
I almost dropped the French press as I turned to look wide-eyed at Luc. There was no way my brother was involved.
“Luc—” I started but was ignored.
“No.” Harrison’s answer was calm but authoritative. “I have nothing to do with any of it.”
Luc nodded for a moment, his lips pressed together like he was thinking. “Could someone else in your family have done this?”
“Possibly.” Harrison shrugged, took the French press from me, and poured a cup of coffee for himself and one for me, fixing mine the way I liked, sweet but not too much milk. “Can I ask what makes you think it was someone in my family?”
“Marksen said something in one of his taunts that got me thinking.” Luc took another sip of his coffee, like this was a normal breakfast conversation.
I supposed when your job so closely resembled world domination, it very well could be. “He accused me of destroying his livelihood and business,” Luc continued. “Nothing against my beautiful wife, but our marriage wouldn’t have done all of that.”
“There are several people that would consider you an enemy,” Harrison pointed out. “What makes you think it’s my family?”
“I started digging around in the DuBois’s financials.”
“That’s illegal,” Harrison interrupted with his signature raised eyebrow of disapproval.
Luc gave him a flat, bored look that was still handsome as hell. “So arrest me. But you’ll want to hear what I found first.”
“What did you find?” I asked, trying to be part of the conversation. I may not have gone to business school but gone were the days of me being an observer in my own life.
Luc reached over and interlaced his fingers with mine. Even married, it made me blush to show a sign of affection like that so openly in front of my brother.
“I found a lot of questionable moves, purchases of stocks in companies the DuBois’s have a vested interest in. Enough to make it look like those companies are primed for a hostile takeover. There are also a few temporary restraining orders and injunctions blocking purchases that the DuBois’s had been in the process of making on behalf of their own investments and the investments of their largest clients.”