Page 5 of Collateral Claim

Endo produces a masculine chuckle while Charlotte keeps smiling, as pleasant as ever.

A. She picked up on thepetreference and called him a lion in turn.

B. She’s playing along. My sister knows this is all wrong.

As we make our way to the table, I watch my step and wish the earth would open, swallow me whole, and spit me back out on the other side of the world. Like, for example, in my mother’s old country, where I could start working right away.

Unfortunately, real life doesn’t allow for such fantastical escapes.

I remain at the party, wondering if the man who claims to be my fiancé is really staying with us in the house. Surely, he’s not.Is he?

Chapter 3

Yes, he meant my house

Scarlett

Endo Macarley stays for dinner.

He stays for the dance too, and when I refuse to take the floor with him, Mirna Johanson, the wife of my dad’s business associate and my grandma’s best friend, snatches his card and writes her name on it, then passes it a few seats to her left. Larissa, also my grandma’s friend, writes her name on it too.

Endo looks mighty pleased with himself for securing dances with a couple of women in their late sixties who have each been married for over forty years. Larissa hands the card to the fashion queen at the table next to ours, and within an hour, Endo’s card is full, and he becomes the most desirable ineligible bachelor at the party.

Since this is a charity auction, the women pay for the dances with him, and I collect over seventy thousand dollars for my favorite charity. Now I can’t even hate him properly.

But all good (and bad) times come to an end, usually at two in the morning. Which is precisely when Endo drives me home.

At my house, in the formal sitting room, the pair of us wait for my dad’s arrival. I pace from one end of the room to the next, glancing between the old clock and the window. Even though I’m watching the clock, I startle when it chimes four in the morning.

“Where the fuck is he?” I throw up my hands, then pinch my lips when I see Endo’s eyebrows shooting up.

“I didn’t think you cursed,” he says from his casual position on the Louis XIV chair by the fireplace.

“I’m a grown woman, Macarley. Sometimes I curse.”

“Careful, luv, you’re getting snarky with me, and that’s turning me on.”

I huff and part the sheer curtains.

A pair of headlights flash in our driveway, and a black SUV parks in front of the house. I frown. My dad drives a luxury two-seater sports car. Four men I recognize from the party as Endo’s men pile out of the car, and my dad exits with them.

They escorted him home.

“Why are you…” I spin to confront Endo and find him right behind me. My face almost touches his chest, so I crane my neck to look up at him. He’s not watching me, but looking outside. I note the curve of his Adam’s apple, the strong, masculine scent of his bergamot-laced cologne, and the five o’clock shadow that looks too good not to be put to use between my legs.

I should get laid.

Maybe I can call Colin. He’s always up for a nice shag, though I bet it would be vastly different from what Endo would give me in bed. This man doesn’t seem like a man who would shag nicely at all. He seems like one of those guys who would stick his thumb in my butt.

I clear my throat and skip to the right, but Endo follows.

I skip left, but again, he follows.

A smile tugs his lips, and he looks down his nose at me. “Feeling a little trapped, luv?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “No.”

“As soon as your father finds my brother, I will release you. Until then, you are my collateral damsel, and as such, I expect you will behave.”