Read Online Desire (#4) by Carrie Cox - Free Book Online

1

    I STARED OPEN-MOUTHED at my sister.
    The last time I’d seen her she’d been distraught, sobbing and pleading with me to help her. She had gotten into some serious money problems and owed money to an illegal money lender.
    I’d been terrified when Tina told me the heavies had threatened to break her fingers unless she came up with a payment by noon the next day.
    Of course, being a fool, I promised to help her and managed to scrape one thousand dollars together. I’d even gone with her to the trailer park on the outskirts of Miami to make the payment.
    She was so grateful. She promised to never touch drugs again. She was full of talk, telling me how she would get a job and sleep on my couch until she got sorted.
    I wanted so much to believe her. The next morning I woke up and found her gone. She hadn’t even left a note. A week later I got the first phone call. The loan shark told me in no uncertain terms if he couldn’t get the money from my sister, he intended to get it from me.
    I knew it was pointless arguing. He didn’t want to hear that she screwed me over. He didn’t care. He only wanted his money.
    I struggled on with the first couple of payments. But every week, the three-hundred pound gorilla turned up demanding more interest. I couldn’t see a way out.
    So I left everything behind: my job, my apartment, and hid away for months. I worked in bars and cafes for cash in hand until my friend Suzanne emailed me about the job restoring Benjamin’s mural.
    I felt Benjamin squeeze my hand.
    This had to look strange to him, but then I supposed he knew all about dysfunctional families.
    I wished I could coolly dismiss her, but I was too mad. Any words that would leave my mouth right now would be curses.
    I let go of Benjamin’s hand, turned on my heel and ran out of the sitting room. I ran through the Great Hall, almost knocking over Carter, the butler. I didn’t stop to apologise but sprinted down the stone steps out into the garden.
    I made my way down to the end of the lawn, towards the cliffs.
    How could she just turn up like that? And she didn’t even look sorry! I sat down on the grass, near the cliff’s edge, clenched my fists and held them to my eyes. Dammit. I wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t worth it.
    I couldn’t stop the memories flooding my mind. Images of us playing on the beach, in matching bathing suits, when we were kids.
    I sensed Benjamin’s presence, before I heard him.
    He sat down on the grass beside me, and despite the tears misting my eyes, I felt an overwhelming desire to laugh.
    Benjamin Easton wearing an extortionately expensive suit was sitting on the damp grass beside me. If his tailor could see him now, he’d have a fit.
    “I’m okay,” I said. “I’m sorry I came off a little dramatic in there.”
    Benjamin fixed his dark eyes on me.
    I shifted my gaze back to the sea. Sometimes the way he looked at me made me feel uncomfortable. It was almost as if he could look inside me and see all my secrets.
    “I take it you don’t have an amicable relationship with your sister?”
    I snorted. “You could say that,” I shrugged, then said, “I don’t understand how she found me.”
    “I think I might know the answer to that,” Benjamin said.
    I turned back to face him. “What do you mean?”
    “When I paid your debt to that loan shark, I made sure he knew who I was. I wanted him to know I could ruin him if he ever so much as looked at you again.”
    “I told you not to!” Anger suffused me. He’d gone behind my back.
    He narrowed his eyes. “Would you rather live in fear?”
    “Yes! No … I mean, I wanted to handle it myself.”
    “You weren’t doing such a great job of that,” Benjamin said.
    My jaw dropped. “I would have found away. I was saving. I planned to save the full amount the take it down to Miami. He may be a low-life money lender, but he’s a business man. He would have taken the money.”
    Benjamin waved my words away. “The matter’s over. I