Her Wicked Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

the sound of glass shattering. A lot of glass.
    Mr. Haymore finally manages to force his way into the room, and I’m right behind him. The place is a mess. Several tables have been overturned, and two long display cases are in pieces on the floor, their contents buried beneath splinters of wood. But that’s not the worst of it. On the far side of the room, the window’s completely gone.
    So are the two men.
    Haymore darts over to the window—or the hole where the window used to be. His eyes are so wide they look like they’re about to pop out of his head. The young woman who was at the center of all this drama draws up beside him, her mouth open in shock.
    We’re on the first floor, so they couldn’t have fallen that far, but I can’t imagine tumbling through glass is pleasant under any circumstances. I edge closer to the window. Outside, the two men are slowly dragging themselves to their feet. Shards of glass tumble off of their hair and clothes like crystalline rain.
    And Haymore loses it.
    “You’re both fired,” he says. “Fired! Without severance!”
    Casanova gives a little shake of his head, sending a fresh sprinkling of glass into the perfectly manicured grass beneath his feet. His arms are crisscrossed with cuts, but he gives a little smile.
    “Don’t you think you’re overreacting?” he says cheerfully. “It’s just a window.”
    Mr. Haymore looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm.
    “The press will be here in just over a week,” he says. “Carolson will be here tonight. This is not just a window. This is a huge problem. Rest assured, this will come out of your final paychecks.”
    Casanova doesn’t seem particularly upset about this. Poor Luke, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have heard any of it.
    “We need to get them medical help,” I say. “Didn’t you say there was a nurse on staff? Or do we need to drive them into Barberville?”
    Mr. Haymore blinks through his rage, apparently baffled by the suggestion that we have to help the two men who just (apparently) destroyed all of his hopes and dreams.
    “The medical station is down the hall,” says a young woman just behind me. “Julia already went to get someone.”
    Already, some of the others are stepping past us, moving to help the two men. Casanova shrugs them off and pulls himself up through the broken window as if nothing’s out of the ordinary (and who knows—maybe this is the norm for him), but Luke requires a little more assistance. The girl who was in the middle of this mess reaches out to him, but he jerks away. Blood dribbles from his nose down across his lip.
    That’s when a couple of security guards finally get around to showing up.
    “Where were you?” Haymore demands.
    One of the guards shrugs as he helps support Luke. “We only got the call a couple of minutes ago. We came right over.”
    My boss frowns. While there will be a full security team on the payroll by the time this place opens, right now there are only a handful of officers, and they’re more focused on keeping the general public out than dealing with internal problems. It’s a small point of pride that I suspect I’m one of the reasons these guys were brought on in the first place. Just six weeks ago or so, back when they were a little laxer about these things, I managed to sneak onto the property and spray paint dirty words all over the golf course. Juvenile, sure, but I’ve never experienced a rush like I did when I got chased off the property.
    Well, at least until the day I showed up here with blond hair and a fake name.
    Mr. Haymore is beside me again.
    “Clear your schedule¸ Ms. Thomas,” he says.
    “What?”
    “ This is now your top priority.” He waves his arm at the room around us. “Fix this place. Carolson cannot see it like this.”
    “But—”
    “Figure it out. I need to finish the preparations for the banquet tomorrow.” He closes his eyes and rubs his temples. “No complaints. Don’t think I won’t fire you,