Prescription: Makeover Read Online Free PDF

and yanked the hand brake, all in one fluid movement. Tires screamed as the car nearly leaped off the road, then turned ninety degrees to their original path and slid sideways.
    Ike gritted her teeth and hung on tight. She glanced out the window and saw the limo’s headlights aiming straight for her. Then William released the hand brake and accelerated. The BMW leaped forward, sailing down the cross street as the limo sped past.
    William punched it, heading toward the highway as he weaved through the posh residential streets of Greenwich.
    The speedometer edged past sixty, then seventy. Houses blurred on either side in darkness broken by streetlights at regular intervals, and Ike hung onto her seat. At eighty-five miles per hour, the vehicle vibrated and felt lighter, as though it might take flight at any moment.
    She heard a low mutter of sound and for a second thought the engine was getting ready to shake apart. Then she looked across at William and saw that the noise was coming from him, a low chant.
Come on, baby, come on.
    He glanced across at her, eyes hard and somehow reassuring. “Almost there.”
    Then they
were
there. The BMW flashed beneath an overpass, he downshifted and they screamed up an on-ramp onto the interstate. The limo was nowhere in sight.
    They’d made it.
    Ike blew out a breath. “Wow. That was…wow.” She unclamped her fingers from the edge of the leather seat, feeling joints pop. She worked her hands, staring at them. Then she looked over at William’s set profile. “Thanks for the ride.”
    A muscle bunched in his jaw. “Don’t say another word until we’re back in the office. Then you’re Max’s problem.”
    Annoyance flared quickly. “I beg your —”
    “You want to walk?”
    Ike shut up.
    W ILLIAM DIDN’T SAY another word to her, not even when they ditched the shot-up BMW, stripped the plates, which looked like clever fakes up close, and rented a Geo Metro under a name that definitely wasn’t William Caine.
    It was past midnight, and Ike’s eyelids were drooping when he finally turned into the parking structure adjoining the New York offices of Vasek & Caine Investigations. He’d called ahead, and Max was waiting for them upstairs, along with his wife, Raine.
    As always, the sight of Max’s wife sent a stab through Ike. Not because she’d wanted Max for herself. Mr. Macho Protector made a fine friend, but she wouldn’t have been caught dead dating him or anyone like him. No, her issue with Raine was even pettier than that — it was how she dressed.
    Raine was ethereal. Delicate. Feminine. Her honey-colored hair fell from a careless knot atop her head, with wisps brushing against her purple shadowed eyes and full lips. Ike had always figured her look was the product of a damn good makeup routine, but given the late hour and the fact that William’s call had woken the newlyweds, she was forced to conclude that Raine had been born feminine and beautiful, the exact sort of woman that men gravitated toward every single time.
    And that was so not fair.
    Ike sniffed. “He didn’t need to wake you guys up. This could’ve waited until morning.”
    Raine’s eyes flashed prettily. “And you could’ve listened to Max and let the men handle this. Because of you, we’ve got nothing.”
    The sting of truth had Ike baring her teeth. “Letting the men handle things is your style, not mine. Besides, we would’ve been fine if James Bond here —” she indicated William with a jerk of her thumb “— hadn’t broken cover. I could’ve talked my way out of the situation.”
    She was spoiling for a fight, for something to dispel the residual buzz of adrenaline and the knowledge that William probably would have been an inducted member of The Nine by now if it weren’t for her.
    He shot her a disgusted look and pointed to a chair. “Sit there and stay quiet until we can figure out how to get you to Boston safely, where your boss can keep you under lock and key in the secure