Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 109318 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109318 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
“You’ll have to take my word for it.”
Beat was already shaking his head. “I need something in writing.”
“Not happening. It’s my word or nothing. How long do you need to pull the money together?”
Goddammit. This was real. This was happening. Again.
The last year and a half had been nothing but a reprieve. Deep down, he’d known that, right? “I need some time. Until February, at least.”
“You have until Christmas.”
The jagged edge of panic slid into his chest. “That’s less than a month away.”
A humorless laugh crackled down the line. “If you can make your selfish cow of a mother look like a saint to the public, you can get me eight hundred thousand by the twenty-fifth.”
“No, I can’t,” Beat said through his teeth. “It’s impossible—”
“Do it or I talk.”
The line went dead.
Beat stared down at the silent device for several seconds, trying to pull himself together. Text messages from his friends were piling up on the screen, asking him where he was. Why he was late for dinner. He should have been used to pretending everything was normal by now. He’d been doing it for five years, since the first time the blackmailer made contact. Smile. Listen intently. Be grateful. Be grateful at all times for what he had.
How much longer could he pull this off?
A couple of minutes later, he walked into a pitch-black party room.
The lights came on and a sea of smiling faces appeared, shouting, “Surprise!”
And even though his skin was as cold as ice beneath his suit, he staggered back with a dazed grin, laughing the way everyone would expect. Accepting hugs, backslaps, handshakes, and kisses on the cheeks.
Nothing is wrong.
I have it all under control.
Beat struggled through the inundation of stress and attempted to appreciate the good around him. The room full of people who had gathered in his honor. He owed them that after all the effort they’d clearly put in. One of the benefits of being born in December was Christmas-themed birthdays, and his friends had laid it on thick. White twinkling lights were wrapped around fresh garland and hanging from the rafters of the restaurant’s banquet room. Poinsettias sprung from glowing vases. The scent of cinnamon and pine was heavy in the air and a fireplace roared in the far corner of the space. His friends, colleagues, and a smattering of cousins wore Santa hats.
As far as themes went, Christmas was the clear winner, and he couldn’t complain. As far back as he could remember, it had been his favorite holiday. The time of year when he could sit still and wear pajamas all day and let his head clear. His family always kept it about the three of them, no outsiders, so he didn’t have to be on. He could just be.
One of Beat’s college buddies from NYU wrestled him into a playful headlock and he endured it, knowing the guy meant well. God, they all did. His friends weren’t aware of the kind of strain he was under. If they did, they would probably try to help. But he couldn’t allow that. Couldn’t allow a single person to know the delicate reason why he was being blackmailed.
Or who was behind it.
Beat noticed everyone around him was laughing and he joined in, pretending he’d heard the joke, but his brain was working through furious rounds of math. Presenting and discarding solutions. Eight hundred thousand dollars. Double what he’d paid this man last time. Where would he come up with it? And what about next time? Would they venture into the millions?
“You didn’t think we’d let your thirtieth pass without an obnoxious celebration, did you?” Vance said, elbowing him in the ribs. “You know us better than that.”
“You’re damn right I do.” A glass of champagne appeared in Beat’s hand. “What time is the clown arriving to make balloon animals?”
The group erupted into a disbelieving roar. “How the hell—”
“You ruined the surprise!”
“Like you said”—Beat saluted them, smiling until they all dropped the indignation and grinned back—“I know you.”
They don’t know you, though. Do they?
His smile faltered slightly, but he covered it up with a gulp of champagne, setting the empty glass down on the closest table, noting the peppermints strewn among the confetti. The paper pieces were in the shape of little B’s. Pictures of Beat dotted the refreshment table in plastic holders. One of him jumping off a cliff in Costa Rica. Another one of him graduating in a cap and gown from business school. Yet another photo depicted him onstage introducing his mother, world-famous Octavia Dawkins, at a charity dinner he’d organized recently for her foundation. He was smiling in every single picture.
It was like looking at a stranger. He didn’t even know that guy.
When he jumped off that cliff in Central America, he’d been in the middle of procuring funds to pay off the blackmailer the first time. Back when he could manage the sum. Fifty thousand here or there. Sure, it meant a little shuffling of his assets, but nothing he couldn’t handle in the name of keeping his parents’ names from being dragged through the mud.