Read Online Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) by Amber Bardan - Free Book Online

things.” He raised one brow and shot me a look. “It’s in my blood.”
    “Your dad?”
    He returned to his book and turned a page. “No, my mother.”
    My chest fluttered. In all the time I’d known him, he’d spoken about his parents maybe twice. “What did she do?”
    “She taught philosophy, but never, ever stopped trying to master the universe.” He still gazed at his book, but if the man could actually read and hold a conversation at the same time he was even more impressive than I gave him credit for.
    “Your mother sounds driven.”
    He glanced up, a smile on one side of his mouth. “Nope, she was a head case.”
    “Really?”
    “A complete nightmare.” He closed the book with a snap.
    I laughed. “No way?”
    “The woman managed to squeeze forty hours into a day.” He set the book down next to him. “She’d work for ten then torment me for thirty.”
    “How?”
    “For one, on Mondays I was only allowed to speak French.” He rested one arm behind his head and the other around my waist. “Tuesdays and Thursdays Spanish. Greek on Fridays.”
    “You poor tortured kid.” I curled into his side.
    “You have no idea.” He huffed, his chest billowing under my arm.
    I poked the top button on his shirt. “Tell me then.”
    He smiled, mischief breaking across his lips in a way that cleaved my heart in two. “Haithem,” he said, in a pitched voice. “Want some Basboosa?” He wiggled his black brows enticingly.
    “What’s Basboosa?”
    He broke character for a brief moment. “A kind of honey cake.” Then moved the hand from behind his head and held it out to me in a pleading gesture. “Yes, Mama, I want Basboosa.”
    “Then ask for it in French,” he said sharply.
    I placed my fingers over my mouth .
    Too funny .
    “But, Mama, there’s no Basboosa in French.”
    He snatched his hand away. “Then no cake for you.”
    I broke into laughter. His chest rumbled with me. I laughed harder. They probably heard me in the other carriage. The laughter settled into giggles. “You’re such a liar, she did not do that to you.”
    “Maybe she wasn’t that bad,” he said, his smile easing. “How would you know?”
    “Because it’d be impossible for any woman to resist this face.” I squeezed his cheeks with one hand, pushing his lips into a pout. “If we ever have a son, I’ll be ruined.”
    His fingers closed around my wrist, drawing my hand away from his face. The look in his eyes silenced the humor in my chest. A deep vee pushed between his brows and he glanced at my hand, the left one I’d squeezed him with. He turned it over and brushed the two rings on my finger with his thumb. The bittersweet part of the disguise.
    My heartbeat overwhelmed the whoosh and bump of the train.
    “One day, I’ll give you new rings and they’ll be real.”
    I took my bottom lip between my teeth, clamping down on it to keep my emotions on the inside of my head. I didn’t need him to make me a promise of proposal. We were already so far beyond that. The idea though, the image that flashed through my mind of what it’d be like to have something normal with him, a proper life together...I never knew it were possible to long so deeply for a dream.
    I stared at the rings. “There’s two carats on this one, I’d say it’s fairly real.”
    He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them, then drew me into his arms. “You’re right, Angel. This is real.”
    I turned my face into his neck and closed my eyes.
    One day though...

Chapter Seven
    We pulled in to the “safe house.” An old plantation home in the middle of rolling hills with wide sweeping verandas. A kind of paradise I’d only seen in movies. It could’ve been a hole in the ground for all the difference it made to me.
    He parked the car right up close to the house, and lifted the hand brake.
    I can’t do this.
    How could I wait safely in this little haven while Haithem strode into danger alone?
    He unbuckled his seatbelt.
    I turned to