Guess I’m not so boring now.
Hurriedly righting myself, I got the rest of my body inside the limousine, and as soon as I pulled the door shut, Anthony had the limo moving. The older man shot me a mournful look through the rearview mirror. “I’m sorry, miss.”
“It’s alright. I’ll live.” It was no one’s fault my orderly life tended to, well,notbe orderly whenever Marcus Ravelli was concerned. Reaching for my phone, I typed my reply to his text.
Anneke:I’ll be there in thirty.
Marcus:I look forward to discussing the merger with you.
Merger, huh?
Riiiiiiiiight.
I supposed that was another way of describing things.
Merger it was, I thought.
And I couldn’t wait for some, err, merging to take place.
One
Ten years ago
Summer for my family typically meant weeks spent in the country, an arrangement that the lord of the house – aka Willem, the Good-Hearted Tyrant – insisted on. We could party if we wanted during the weekends, but we still had to make it back to the country. No sleeping over in anyone else’s place or even in our house in Amsterdam. It was a rule I had no problems following since I loved our estate inBruin Hemel,but my other siblings were a different matter.
Speak of the devil,I thought.
The double doors to the family room had swung open and my brother Jaak, older than me by a year, came strolling in, looking his usual gorgeous self but a little hung over.
“Make yourself at home.”
I blinked. “Huh?” Thiswasour home. Was he drunk?
Jaak laughed at my bewildered expression. “I wasn’t talking to you, idiot.” He nodded towards the still-open doors as he threw himself beside me on the couch, saying, “I was talking to him.”
I followed his gaze, just in time to see a stranger enter the family room.