The Proposition (The Plus One Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF

bringing the boy along with the two kids Sloane currently mentored. Isaac wasn’t dealing with the change well.
    Drake’s face darkened. “What happened? Is he hurt?”
    “No,” Sloane assured him, even as he felt himself dragged back through time. He’d been younger than Isaac’s thirteen years when he’d begun finding ways to make money. To keep them going until his mom found her next Prince Fucking Charming. He ignored the ball of rage lodged in his solar plexus. Anger was not productive, action was. Pulling himself back, he said, “Kid’s okay so far. But it turns out that Isaac and his grandmother are in the process of being evicted.”
    “Fix it.”
    “On it. Already had one of my assistants pull the records. We’ll pay up their rent through the end of the year. But damn it,” he nearly growled. “I’m not reaching the kid. He, or his grandmother, should have contacted me.”
    “Pull your head out of your ass. These boys, all they know is rejection, constant fear and desperation. They don’t believe words. Only actions.” Drake ground his jaw then added, “By getting sick, I abandoned him too. Just like everyone else.”
    The ugly reality in his mentor’s words twisted with his own helplessness chomping at his guts. “Look, I’ll bring the kid by tomorrow. You talk to him. Keep his ass in school and off the streets.” Sloane knew the streets too well, knew the degradation and hunger that stripped a boy of his soul. It’s part of what drove him to work relentlessly. He was never going to be that powerless again.
    Drake nodded. “I need to keep in contact with the kid.” His gaze sharpened. “Now tell me the real reason you’re haunting my room when I should be dreaming of hot nurses and sponge baths.”
    Notching his chin down, Sloane scowled. “Dude, I don’t need to know what kind of sick shit you dream about.”
    The other man flashed a merciless smile. “If you don’t start talking, I’ll describe the dreams. In boner-inducing detail.”
    Sloane grimaced, then sighed. He was cornered and he knew it. “A woman and her friend were attacked by two carjackers earlier tonight. One of them had a knife.”
    Drake reached over to his bedside table, latched on to a puke-colored pitcher and poured some water in a plastic cup. “Not seeing the problem yet. Two thugs, one knife. That’s not even a workout for you.” He took a sip of water.
    “The woman. I recognized her earlier in the night but couldn’t figure out from where until she told me her name. I saw her once a dozen years ago when I was a dishwasher at the country club. It was her sweet-sixteen birthday party.”
    Slowly, Drake lowered the cup until it rested on a thigh. Said nothing.
    Sloane drew in a breath. “She had it all. Rich parents who adored her. Huge party. I hated her.” He knew it had been irrational. But he could still remember watching her from the kitchen. He didn’t recall her dress or any of that shit, but he remembered her eyes—such a clear green blue, huge in her face, and completely guileless. “I hated her for being alive and having a perfect life.”
    “When Sara was dead,” Drake filled in.
    Refusing to shy away from the truth, Sloane said, “Yeah.” He was a cold man. A hard man. He didn’t know how to be any other way, nor did he want to be. Tonight, Kat had tripped something inside him, but what? And why now? “She’s different.”
    “A dozen years will do that. So will life.”
    That woman he saw tonight was light years away from the girl he remembered. He’d hated that girl, but the woman?
    Intrigued him. Roused something in him. Made him need to know more about her.
    He tried to explain. “Back then, I’d been the dishwasher no one even noticed. And she’d been the princess, the star. And tonight…” He let it hang, still trying to get his head around it.
    “You dominated the room as you always do. And she?”
    “Brought the cake. Stood against a wall partially hidden by a