A Bad Boy is Good to Find Read Online Free PDF Page B

showing me the light—which looks especially golden through the bottom of a bottle of champagne. Cheers!” She drained her glass, then slammed it down on the table. “Now get out.”
    Time for plan B. Actually it was plan A, since he’d pretty much assumed she wouldn’t go willingly.
    “I brought you a present.” He lifted the flower-patterned bag filled with pink tissue paper.
    “Oh, how touching. Now take it with you when you piss off.” She picked up the champagne bottle and refilled her glass, spilling some on the table.
    “How much have you drunk today?” He didn’t manage to sound casual.
    “Don’t worry, dear, it’s my first bottle. Whoops, it seems to be empty. Lucky thing I have a case in the fridge.” Her empty eyes stared at him in mute challenge. Devoid of all the love and laughter he’d once put there.
    “Won’t you at least see what I brought you?” He shook the bag and a metallic clank sounded under the rustling tissue paper.
    “Gold ingots? Those would come in handy.”
    He stepped toward her, crowded her. She didn’t smell like roses anymore. She wore a heavy, harsh scent probably designed in a Paris lab.
    “You’ll need both hands to lift it out.” He raised the bag. She looked at him, suspicious but curious, then dipped both hands into the bag. Lifted out a pair of chrome handcuffs.
    “What the—?”
    He pushed her onto the bed and pinned her with his weight while he grabbed the handcuffs and clamped them on her wrists. She struggled and shrieked but was no match for him.
    “I’m sorry,” he murmured as he pulled the wad of cotton primed with knock-out drops out of a Ziploc bag buried in the tissue paper and covered her mouth and nose. She stared at him, plainly terrified, as her body went limp.
    “It’s for your own good,” he whispered. She couldn’t hear him, and he hoped no one else had either. Lucky her room was at the end of the hall.
    The next part of the plan promised to be tricky. The French doors to the garden were a blessing, but he still had to get her out there and over the low stucco wall that surrounded the property. And he needed to bring her stuff. Since money was tight now, everything counted.
    He rooted around under the bed and in the closet looking for a suitcase. Nothing. She’d come here empty-handed after braining him with the champagne bottle. He found an expensive looking shopping bag from some store in Beverly Hills and shoved all her clothes into it. Mostly skimpy workout stuff. Piled a load of cosmetics on top, keeping one eye on the door. The strappy sandals took up less space than sneakers, so he took them instead.
    He left the Cheetos behind. And the case of champagne. He scribbled a note about settling the bill later and forged her girlish signature on it.
    With the bulging shopping bag slung over his shoulder, he flipped the lock on the French doors and propped one open with her sneaker. No one outside. Good.
    Her limp body felt like a sack of lead. Her newly toned muscles flopped, arms hanging, as he tried to get a good grip on her.
    I’m so sorry, Lizzie . Her straightened hair hung in a shiny curtain as he carried her over the threshold, out onto a tiled patio. The heat smacked him in the face, and he adjusted his arms around her chest.
    He kicked the sneaker out of the door frame and eased the door closed with his foot. He wanted it to look like she’d slipped out the front door when no one was looking, skipped out on the bill.
    The wall was a problem. For a moment he contemplated sneaking around the inside of it and strolling out the front gates. Nah. Too much chance of being seen through a window. The smooth stucco rose only chest high, but he couldn’t step over it. Regretfully, he leaned over and lowered Lizzie’s limp body as far as he could…
    Then dropped her.
    He grimaced as she fell to the sun-baked dirt and rolled, hair sprawling in the red dust.
    I, Conroy Beale, will never again do anything dishonest, low-down,