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

pillar. Observing. Maybe hiding. Then she vanished to the kitchen.” What had happened to change her?
    “Hiding?”
    He lifted an eyebrow. “She’s a contradiction. Hiding,” Sloane confirmed. “Yet she has these pink streaks in her brown hair.” He’d liked that. Hell he’d fucking loved it. Had wanted to pull off the band that held her hair back in a ponytail and run all the strands through his fingers. Find every streak in there. The urge had been strong. Visceral.
    She gave off conflicting messages. Timid women did not put streaks in their hair. Nor did they tell him to get out of their space. Yet she kept her purse in front of her like it could protect her from him. She’d done the same thing in the ballroom with the decorating kit.
    He added the obvious. “Trouble, she’ll be trouble for me. Right now, when I need to focus.”
    “A distraction is exactly what you need.”
    Sloane unlaced his hands from behind his head and sat forward. “Foster will be out in a few days. I’ve waited fourteen years. I won’t be sidetracked.” Not even by stormy blue-green eyes and pink-streaked hair. And those curves…yeah he needed to stay far away from that. She was way too tempting.
    Drake held his stare. “There’s a price for taking a life, Sloane.”
    His thoughts iced to pure vengeance. “Damn right. It’s time Lee Foster paid it.”
    “Look around you, son. This is how it’s going to end for me. Alone.”
    Sloane surged up out of his chair. “I’m not letting you die.” He’d said the five words with the same cold determination that had won him championship fights and built his company.
    “Death doesn’t need your permission. And you’re missing the point. Do you see any woman shedding tears? Anyone who gives a rat’s ass?”
    Sloane crossed his arms over his chest. “Dude, you’re a man whore. No woman could trust you.” He wasn’t doing this little pity-fest thing. It bored him. Okay, it pissed him off.
    Drake shook his head and reached over to set down his water cup. “I’ve had time to look back over what I did with my life, and the view sucks. I made a choice, I killed a man. And that single act poisoned every goddamned thing from that moment on.” Slapping his hand down on his thin thighs, he said, “It’ll poison you too.”
    Sloane didn’t flinch. “It’s not murder if he steps in the ring with me voluntarily.” He’d made sure Lee Foster would do exactly that.
    Drake gripped the material of the hospital gown in his fists. “You once stopped a fight, sacrificing the win because you refused to seriously hurt your opponent.”
    Sloane shrugged. “I know a concussion when I see one. The ref was sleeping on the job.”
    “You’re not planning on stopping this fight. It’s murder. Doesn’t matter how you stage it, it’s still murder.”
    Sara’s death was murder. Foster’s death would be justice. “That day you stopped me from killing Foster, you told me that if I was going to get vengeance, do it right. That’s who I am.”
    The older man sighed. “That’s on me. I tried to give you a reason to live. Instead, I gave you a reason to kill.”

Chapter Four

    Drake’s words echoed in Sloane’s head as he exited the hospital through the emergency room since the front doors were locked at this hour of the night. Or early morning, actually. He strode out the doors into the cool air scented with the tang of the ocean and stopped.
    He recognized Kat from her long ponytail streaked with pink. Her shoulders were tense, and she stood with her hand on the open back door of a cab. From the angle of her head, she was staring inside.
    Utterly frozen.
    Sloane took two steps closer. Her fingers on the edge of the door were white-knuckled. Her breathing was tight. And she had her other arm holding her purse against her stomach.
    Walk away from her, he told himself. Whatever her deal was, just walk away.
    “Lady, are you getting in?” the cabbie barked.
    Sloane shifted his attention