Read Online Blackmailed by the Billionaire Brewer by Rachel Lyndhurst - Free Book Online Page B

nothing
     to do with the image his mind was torturing him with: a picture of her shivering under
     a thin blanket in the dark. Alone, worrying about her feral cat, possibly sobbing…
     “Are your folks in Passion Creek? Could I take you both there?”
    She looked horrified. “No way. Sophie’s making the place crowded as it is, and my
     mom doesn’t like pets because of the way they shed. She’s OCD on the cleaning front.
     Besides, I’m a big girl and I have blankets. I’ll be fine.”
    He shook his head. “A buddy, then? You can’t spend a night like this alone in sub-zero
     temperatures with no heating.”
    Her face lit up. “Genius idea, why didn’t I think of that? Yes, my friend Melanie
     will let us stay the night, no problem. I’ll call her on the way.”
    “Excellent, then let’s get out of here.”
    Piper jabbed at the screen of her phone irritably. She’d tried five times to send
     a text to Melanie and each time it had bounced back as undelivered. Her network coverage
     was virtually non-existent, but what choice did she have but to keep trying to call?
    “Can’t get a text to go through. She wasn’t answering earlier,” she muttered, half
     to herself, half to Matt. “And damn, now that I’ve got a signal, I’m going straight
     to voicemail again.”
    Matt raised his voice over the lash of the windshield wipers thrashing back and forth
     in the screaming wind. “What if she’s not there?”
    Piper continued to listen to Melanie’s voice recording. “She will be.”
    “Can you be absolutely sure about that? What if she’s not?”
    She frowned at the question and then her hands flew to her mouth as the road ahead
     disappeared beneath a wall of falling snow and rock. “Watch out!”
    “Shit,” Matt growled and braked so quickly and so hard it was like being kicked by
     a horse in the chest when the seat belts activated. He swerved the car to the left,
     avoiding hitting the six-foot-high wall, but coming perilously close to the mountainside
     of the road—harsh, black jagged, unforgiving rock. His breath came out in short bursts.
     Even Superman had his limits, it seemed. The engine whined. “That was close.”
    “Holy crap.” Piper heard the shake in her voice, but it was okay to be scared and
     in a state of shock. They could have been buried alive or crushed to death if he hadn’t
     reacted so quickly. Even the cat had fallen silent.
    Matt took a deep breath, gripped the steering wheel, and closed his eyes briefly.
     “Nobody this side of that avalanche is going back to Passion Creek tonight.” His eyes
     opened and they were dark and serious when they connected with hers. “Before you say
     anything, I’m not going to argue with you, Piper, okay?” He looked edgy, but maybe
     he was in shock, too. “I’m taking you to my cabin.”
    “Oh no, I don’t think—”
    “No, don’t think about it at all because you have no choice.” He snatched his cell
     phone out of his jacket pocket and jabbed at the screen for a few seconds. “ We have no choice. If we don’t get shelter in the next fifteen minutes or so we could
     be in serious trouble.”
    He carefully turned the car around and she could see a muscle working in his jaw as
     he concentrated on the maneuver. She wanted to protest, to try and find some other
     way of not being taken into the middle of nowhere with Matt DeLeo, but was too frightened
     by their brush with death to even speak as they roared off. They passed by the veterinary
     center again and neither of them spoke to confirm what she had suspected and feared.
     All the lights were out, even in the parking lot, which Matt’s headlights showed was
     now empty.
    “Power’s out,” he announced flatly and squinted through the windshield. Visibility
     had gone beyond poor to verging on the impossible. “Hold tight. Five miles.”
    Piper squeezed her eyes shut against the black and white whirlpool of the ferocious,
     unforgiving night. She was clenching