Roman Holiday 1: Chained: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

actually
worried
for me. You. The man who ate two barbecued sandwiches right in front of the starving woman last night. How gullible do you think I am?”
    “I don’t think you’re gullible. I admire your tenacity.”
    That startled him, too. To realize, after he said it, that it was true.
    “Well, admire this. I’ve weathered a lot of hurricanes, and I’m smart enough to understand that this storm is worse news for you than for me. You need my cooperation more than ever.”
    “If you stay here, you could be killed.”
    “And if I get killed, you’re completely fucked.”
    Roman sat back on his heels.
    She was right. This skinny, sunburned, irritating woman with mulch sticking to her legs held all the cards, and she
knew
it.
    “Why so quiet?” she asked.
    He could hear her glee now. How had he missed it before? She had been waiting for this moment, and he should have guessed. He’d done his homework. He should have known that the daughter of a university chemist and a U.S. senator would be intelligent enough to trap him, even if she had frittered away all the advantages she’d been given on a string of pointless jobs and worthless affairs.
    He’d underestimated her.
    Heberto would be disappointed in him.
    “Don’t you want to ask me if I’m cold?” she asked. “Maybe bring me a raincoat? Or, oh! I know! You could tell me how if something happened to me, it would weigh on your
conscience
.”
    “I don’t have a conscience.”
    He’d managed not to snap at her. Just.
    “Yeah, Ace, I’d kind of figured that out.”
    “What do you want?”
    “A phone.”
    “No.”
    “I want to call my friend to come pick me up.” She threw him a smile that showed small, uneven teeth.
    He imagined two rows of them, sharp and deadly as a shark’s.
    He imagined her taking a bite out of his thigh. Blood and exposed bone.
    Why did that make his dick throb? Something wrong with him.
    He shut it down.
    “If I give you a phone, you’ll use it to call the
Herald
to tell them how your life is in danger, but your cause is too righteous to abandon.”
    “Ooh, that’s a good idea. I hadn’t thought of the
Herald
, but you’re right, the story is totally strong enough to hook them. Especially if you’re a big deal in Miami.” She bounced up and down against her restraints, as though her happiness might burst out everywhere if she didn’t express it somehow. “You
are
, aren’t you?”
    “No.”
    Not yet. But there were people at the
Herald
who would recognize his name. People whowould know of his connection to Heberto Zumbado and enjoy splashing this story of big-business greed victimizing a defenseless woman all over the front page.
    She would even photograph well, despite being all wet.
Because
she was all wet. Her T-shirt stuck to her body, accentuating the inadequate swell of her breasts. Her legs were sticks, her hips practically nonexistent.
    Too blond, too thin, too helpless. Just the sort of woman three-quarters of American men wanted to bang.
    Or rescue.
    Both, really.
    The publicity would ruin him.
    “No phone,” he repeated. “What are your other demands?”
    “What is this, a hostage negotiation?”
    The question made him queasy—a sudden, dizzying heaving in his stomach as he dragged his eyes away from her face. His gaze settled on a palm tree. Its widespread, waving arms made him think, inanely, of a starfish that had been flipped onto its back and left without hope of rescue.
    She hadn’t meant to do it. That hadn’t been a sly reference to the worst day of his miserable childhood, because she knew nothing of that. No one knew.
    No one knows you. You have no people
.
    He had only this life that he’d made for himself, and it hung in the balance now. It dangled from her fingertips.
    He would give her anything she demanded. Anything.
    But she didn’t know that.
    Roman inhaled deeply, willing his disobedient stomach to settle.
    So long as she never found out, he should be fine.

CHAPTER FIVE
    The