Hard As Stone (Beautiful Betrayal Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

spots that captured a wide expanse of each room since the townhouse layout is an open floorplan. I didn’t have the wherewithal to nimbly extract the video footage, but time being of the essence I didn’t argue with Brooke’s suggestion.
    Clear thinking as usual, she dialed up the PI employed by her father and handed me her laptop. On the screen was a digital copy of his CV. He’s ex-CIA and with his buzzed gray hair and self-righteously jutted chin, I pegged him as an ex-Marine. It’s dubious if those traits ever retire. Brooke raised her brows and I nodded, giving my consent. Obviously, surveillance is part of the PI’s skill set as well as storming a hostile beach. He’s sent back oodles of incriminating segments an hour after I gave my login details.
    What I’ve witnessed so far is enough to make me tremble after the adrenaline dump I’ve just withstood. “I can’t believe with all his holier than thou speeches, Spencer is nothing but a fraud.”
    Brooke ruffles my hair and says, “No great loss.”
    “Don’t know about that. This screws me over in so many ways.” I’m spent after watching my fiancé getting blown by a guy in a hood in our bedroom.
    Only outdone when he dropped to his knees and sucked a line of erections with the Super Bowl playing in the background. Vividly, I recall that weekend. I’d spent it in the library studying for my early thesis defense. Spence had acted so impressed that I opted to go full blast into an internship and had submitted my thesis in January. “Unheard of,” he’d spouted proudly out one side of his mouth, while informing me that he was having a few friends over to watch the game.
    Just how many of his friends were lovers? I might never have an answer, but I’m fully enlightened that he sucked off his football friends and let them come all over his face as part of the sports shindig he’d hosted downstairs. I should’ve realized his interest in the NFL was a total crock. It was part of his personality that seemed disingenuous to the so-called pro-environment nonviolent issues he championed. I’d actually found the idea of an irrational macho NFL fanatic sweetly appealing—but no more.
    Brooke sighs and walks to the doorway. “Spencer Donovan should be made to pay instead of threaten.”
    How? This is going to undo my plans to disengage from my overzealous grandparents. The boomerang will give them ammunition to forestall relinquishing their rights as trustees to oversee a living will fiasco. I’m allotted a small monthly amount to use on my expenses. But at any point, my grandparents can decide to reduce the amount or withhold my trust account funds altogether. Yesterday, I recognized the cashier at the pharmacy as a BC graduate. Lots more are working at Starbucks, tending bar, standing on corners and spinning signs.
    In case I can’t find a full-time position, my parachute is my trust account. The final hearing is coming up in two months. Eight weeks and newsworthy no doubt—from a media standpoint, I’ll be at the end of this breakup. The timing blows.
    Unless I do more than host a pity party. Next week, I’m graduating from BC with a journalism degree. With this debacle, most if not all the job prospects I’ve lined up would gleefully throw me under a bus if they were called as a trustee witness. Even under oath, not many would thwart the Silvers. Finding an employment prospect who isn’t beholden to PanCorp, Gran, or Pop is akin to finding a needle in a crony-hyped haystack.
    Brooke’s laptop chimes. She taps the screen. Her dark eyes travel from left to right a couple of times. She looks away hastily and after a beat, I watch her solemnly rise.
    As if a primitive fear takes hold of me, a warning spasm jets up my spine. “Where are you going?” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away.
    “To get some backup. We just received another set of videos,” Brooke whispers.
    My mind flounders. “I don’t think I can stomach dessert.”
    Her