Torn (Lords of the City #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

attack.
    “Mr. Stafford is ready,” the digital assistant informed us. “Good luck, Miss Clare. And please, mind the procedures.”
    “I don’t remember half of what she said,” I admitted to Peter as we left the suite and continued down the hall, closer to the devil himself.
    “The main thing is to call him ‘sir.’ You’ll learn the rest along the way.”
    “If I’m hired,” I stipulated.
    We stopped at a door at the end of the hall that differed from the rest, breaking the austerity of the floor. It was sheathed in what I was certain was solid gold, giving it superiority over the rest.
    “I have Miss Clare for you,” Peter announced, speaking into a device tied around his wrist like a watch.
    “Only Mr. Stafford can open the door,” he explained to me. “When he does, go on in. I’ll wait for you out here.”
    Slowly, the door slid open, and I walked in, ready to bear the whip.
    Mr. Stafford’s office was warmer than the hall. The floors were comprised of the same marble that decorated most of the building, but the furnishings were made of a rich walnut wood that was cordial and welcoming. There was no desk, just couches and a wall full of screens. It was impressive but not as impressive as the man who stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows that oversaw the city and the ports that bordered the lake.
    Dressed in a sharp suit tailored to hug the firm lines of his tall, ripped body, Mr. Stafford faced away from me, but the richness of his sandy blond hair and the bulk of his tanned neck was familiar. When he turned around, confronting me with his bright green eyes, green like the jungle, I managed to keep my composure.
    “Corey?” I asked uncertainly.
    No, not Corey. The man was identical to Corey in appearance, but not in the way he carried himself. Corey was reckless. There was nothing reckless about Mr. Stafford. If Corey was a wildfire, Mr. Stafford was the frost that tamed the flame. He was ice. Completely calm. Completely calculating. Completely in charge.

C HAPTER T HREE
    “A re you a hallucination?” I murmured.
    Though I knew the man before me was not Corey, my body responded to him as if he were. Anticipation pulsed through me. I wanted to run to him, to throw my arms around him and replay the kisses we’d shared. I wished he was Corey, so much that it hurt, destroying my nerves and fears.
    He stepped away from the window and moved closer to me, his gaze steady and focused, freezing me with his intensity. “There are no hallucinations here,” he said, his voice deep and commanding, a song I’d heard before. “Welcome to my company, Imogen.”
    My mind jumped around, trying to put the pieces together. “How is this possible? Are you a clone? Or a robot?” I looked around. “Are you a hologram?” I wasn’t trying to be funny. I was serious.
    Seemingly unamused, he stopped in his tracks, the green in his eyes darkening. “Corey didn’t tell you.” He wasn’t asking. He was stating it like a bad rumor.
    “Tell me what?”
    “I’m his twin brother, Noah.”
    It was hard to accept. Wild, rugged Corey, the hot recluse who tramped through the brush to protect elephants, who carried a gun, whose kisses freed my soul, was brother to Mr. Stafford, the billionaire who came from a wealthy family, which meant Corey did too. I couldn’t imagine Corey having anything in common with Noah Stafford or his company. It was fancy and bright, but it was rigid, everything Corey rebelled against.
    Drinking me in with a power that made me blush, Noah was the opposite. Gorgeously polished, he wore his designer suit like a movie star about to walk the red carpet, a man who I imagined smoked fine cigars and drank bourbon out of a diamond-encrusted glass, who never played a hand he wasn’t sure he’d win, who thrived off structure.
    “You’re a beautiful woman, Imogen,” he said, addressing me by name once again. The command he exhibited made my heart pound. His eyes locked onto mine, pulling me in