Page 176 of Morally Black Betrothal

“It’s different than his dad’s organization,” Selena had told me when I called her on my way to South Station. “Ezra is trying to get out on his own, so you won’t find him at the headquarters in Providence. And I guarantee if you go to his dad, you won’t getwhat you want at all. Trust me, I tried that once and it didnotgo well.”

You could have gone back to Brendan.

I pushed that thought away as his brother’s words echoed louder:Your boyfriend here is a lying piece of shit who sold your family’s farm to the highest bidder.

How could I possibly trust Brendan to make things right when he was responsible for this in the first place? Even if hehadneeded to give up the farm to save Kylie, how could he have kept something like that from me?

He had known the whole time. While he had shaken my father’s hand and listened to stories about my mother. While he made love to me in her bakery and whispered fantasies of our future there.

When he told me he loved me and wanted me, right there, forever.

No, I couldn’t go to Brendan for help now. I couldn’t trust him at all.

The heavy, if dented, steel door opened with a creak as I entered the building. Inside, I was greeted by a fairly standard lobby, even if it bore signs of neglect in the stained ceiling tiles and walls and the odor of stale cigarette smoke.

A tired-looking receptionist looked up from a desk where she was smacking on gum while doing her nails. Her expression was half irritable, half surprised, like I was the last thing she expected to encounter at her job…receiving people.

“Who are you?” Her thick Rhode Island accent existed, just like the state, somewhere between New York and Boston.

Cautiously, I approached the desk. “Er, my name is Simone Bishop. I was told I could find Ezra Huntington here.”

“He expectin’ you?”

I shook my head. “No. But it’s very important.”

“No appointment, no meetin’.” The woman went back to filing her nails.

I frowned. She didn’t look up again.

I put my hand on the desk, which immediately made her sit up with a spark of challenge. “Look, I’m not leaving until I see him.”

I could practically feel Brendan in the back of my mind, that sly dimple making an appearance as he looked on.That’s right, angel. Show her some of the devil I put in you.

I shook the thought away and persisted. “Tell him it’s about a deal he recently made for Dandelion Farm. With Brendan Black. He’ll want to see me.”

The receptionist dropped her nail file without looking at it but took an extra second to pick up her handset. I had no doubt that she was the type who would throw a punch at me for looking at her wrong in any other setting. Maybe this one too.

Channeling Selena’s brashness and Brendan’s intensity, I forced myself not to look away. This was a matter of survival.

It worked. The girl made the call. “Some broad here wants to see you. No, I don’t know her. Says she knows Brendan Black, though. Something about a farm.”

She waited while another voice replied.

“Get your own fuckin’ coffee milk, Ez. I’m here to sit at the desk and answer the phones, not run your goddamn errands.” After dropping the phone back in its receiver, she went back to her nails and spoke without looking at me. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

I paced the length of the reception area, reviewing everything I had learned about the Huntingtons on my way here. They were originally from Providence, with the company headquartered there. Ezra was an only child, and the rumor was that he ended up in Woodstock for the last two years of high school because he’d been kicked out of four different private schools for dealingdrugs, so his mother had taken him to their vacation property to finish school and keep him out of trouble.

He’d graduated, but not without supplying half our class with any and all paraphernalia needed for the parties thrown in deserted fields and under the cover of the forest. Apparently, he was still in that business if he was loaning money to sell psychedelics.

He was dangerous. Enough to take a child from her mother.

But maybe he would be willing to bargain for the right price.

“Simone Bishop. What the fuck, girl? You’re even hotter than your sister.”

I turned at the sound of my name as a man I barely recognized walked into the lobby. He looked nothing like the lanky kid I remembered from high school, but he still dressed like him in worn jeans, a ratty sweater, and a beanie pushed back over a mop of messy brown hair.

He clearly recognized me, though. “Where the fuck have you been all these years? Selena let me get some every now and then, but damn, I think I was looking at the wrong sister.”