Possession (The Plus One Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF

sweatpants. No shoes. “Don’t talk to them, Olivia. Not a word, or the money stops.”
    Kat flinched at the fury icing his voice.
    “Keep me informed.” He pivoted as he ended the call and caught sight of Kat. “Go inside, it’s cold.”
    Kat barely felt the chill. She couldn’t drag her attention from him, from the intensity carving his muscles and tendons into severe lines.
    He moved his thumb over the screen of his cellphone and made another call. “Liza, some reporter’s snooping around Olivia. Find out who it is, and kill the story.”
    Kat stood there like a moron, unsure how to process what was happening.
    Sloane strode by her, past the bed and kept going to the sitting area by the fireplace. He stopped at a bank of screens mounted on the wall, touched a keypad, and the monitors snapped to life.
    It took her a second to grasp what she was seeing on the screens—a half-dozen different views of the front of Sloane’s house, including outside the gates. Twenty four/seven camera surveillance must be part of his security system.
    “Fuck.” He dragged his phone back to his ear. “Ethan, reporters out front. Dissuade them.” He hung up.
    She had no idea what to do. Was this business? Personal? Hugging the robe closer, she looked around for her clothes.
    “Coffee?” Sloane went to the granite bar in the corner of the room. It was equipped with a small fridge, coffeemaker and who knew what else.
    “What’s going on? Do you need to leave?” Kat crossed between the dark four-poster bed and marble fireplace to the sitting area.
    After setting the machine to work, Sloane pulled out cream and sugar and doctored the first cup of coffee the way she liked. “Better to wait and see if Ethan can chase off the reporters. I don’t want them to spot you.”
    Nope, not going there. Sloane had been in public with her, he wasn’t hiding Kat like an illicit secret. She was pretty sure Sloane meant that as protecting her privacy or something along those lines. She took the cup. “What’s this about?” Curiosity bubbled. She gathered that Liza worked for him from the way he’d spoken to her on the phone. “Who’s Olivia?” She knew so little about Sloane’s life.
    He slid another cup under the drip and started that brewing. His shoulders bunched with tension.
    Was he going to answer or just ignore her? He was closed off, a different man from the one she’d been with last night. Unnerved, she sipped the hot coffee.
    “Olivia is my mother.” He gripped the edge of the counter.
    Kat lowered the mug. “That was your mother you were talking to on the balcony? You call her by her given name?”
    “Yes.”
    “The money stops,” Kat repeated what she’d heard him say. “You pay her not to talk? About what? You? Did you do something…?”
    “Reporters. If they paid Olivia, she might tell them anything. I don’t trust her. So I pay her more than anyone else to keep her quiet.”
    That made Kat’s issues with her parents seem damn near silly. Paying his mom not to talk? “You weren’t kidding when you said the two of you weren’t close.” But then, Sloane had told her he’d spent time in foster homes. There could be a good reason why that had happened; maybe his mom had been sick. But to a kid, that had to feel like the ultimate betrayal.
    His large hand circled the remaining mug, making it appear child sized. Sloane faced her. “Not even physically. She’s in Florida, the one state I avoid.”
    Kat didn’t know how to help him. Sloane was coldly upset. “I’m sorry. Do you ever see her?”
    “Once a year. On Sara’s birthday.”
    His dead sister, the one whose initial he had inked on his right biceps. “To remember Sara?”
    He stared out the opened French doors, his profile jagged and unforgiving. “To punish each other.”
    “But you don’t see her on your birthday?” It just wasn’t making sense. His mother had lost a child. Wouldn’t she hang on to Sloane more?
    “I don’t celebrate my