A Debt Repaid (1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

influence had helped that man get away with taking her life…
    Chase remembered the explosion of rage that had wracked his small body after getting the news. It was within that same hour that his six-year old brain shut down. One moment , he’d been crying, screaming, and breaking everything in his room while his nanny tried to calm him down. The next, he was numb, eyes dry, sitting on his bed and staring unblinking at the walls of his room.
    Since that day he’ d been cold. A shell. The fact that he’d grown up and done everything in his power to ruin the man responsible—taking his father’s empire out from under him
,
and making it his own—had not been a matter of Chase hungering for vengeance.
    In order for him to crave vengeance, he’d have to have felt some form of hate for the man. Chase didn’t. Destroying his father’s life had been all about logic. A matter of justice, really. The laws of cause and effect dictated that if one took a life, one should pay for it in some way.
    The justice system, as flawed as it was, failed to uphold that tenet. It made sense to make his father pay in some way. When he’d found out that Douglas Colton had been stealing from his company, there hadn’t been any real anger, either. Just the logical conclusion that the man must pay.
    And the payment in this case would be the sweetest.
    When Aria barged into that living room, she’d presented the best opportunity to make that happen. At least, that was the initial thought going through Chase’s head. The reality was much more complicated than that. After all, throwing a weak, pathetic man like Douglas into jail would be vengeance enough.
    No, it had been all about the feeling. One glimpse of her, and all his logic had been stripped from him, as if it were his own skin being peeled off.
    Shifting in his seat, he leaned his elbow on the windows ledge. The world outside that window passed by, but not because the car was moving. They were covering a few inches every other minute, thanks to the traffic they were stuck in.
    He was going to be late to his meeting.
    Fuck it. He dialed his secretary. “Cynthia, cancel my two o’ clock. I won’t be making it on time.” He waited long enough to get her confirmation, then hung up the phone. Leaning back in his seat, he turned to stare back out the window—
    Aria. Just like that, he shot straight in his seat, heart speeding up until the pounding was all he could hear and feel. For a second, he doubted it was her, but another glimpse confirmed it. She was standing in front of a minivan parked at the curb, talking to a young teenage boy.
    Chase spared a second to let his driver know that he would be taking the rest of the day off. Then he was out of the car, weaving his way through the stalled traffic, his eyes locked on Aria.

    “ Ms. Aria, please let me get that for you.”
    Aria stopped and turned to Josh with a mock glare. “Do I look like a weakling to you?”
    Despite the fact that she was just joking with him, the boy turned beat red and ducked his head in embarrassment. “No, ma’am. But mom always says that I shouldn’t let a lady do the heavy lifting.”
    That kid could melt an iceberg. He really could. Aria felt bad for the ladies once he got older. He probably had a bunch of his fellow teenage girls crushing over him hard.
    Smiling , she stepped closer to him and ruffled his black hair. She had to reach up to do so
,
since he’d shot three inches above her in the last few months. Josh, of course, turned a few shades redder at her touch. “That’s sweet of you, kiddo. And very gallant.” His brown eyes rolled upward, and she had no doubt he was trying to remember the meaning of the word “gallant.” Smiling wider, Aria turned back to the minivan. “Gentlemanly,” she explained with a wink.
    Any redder and he was going to turn purple.
    Laughing, she shoo’ed him away. “I’ve got this, Josh. Go on inside
,
. I’m sure Raquel
’
i s going to need your help