Page 130 of Reckless Dynasty (Knight's Ridge Empire 9)

If he’s there… if he wasn’t as asleep as I thought he was, then I’m screwed. Royally fucking screwed.

I mean, I am anyway.

When he wakes up and discovers what I’ve done, he’s going to hunt me down like a raging bull, I have no doubt.

I’m just hoping that I’ll have had enough time to figure out how to deal with him.

Shit. How do you deal with the devil?

My hands tremble and my legs barely hold me up as I fly toward the lift and my escape.

I have no idea what I’m going to do once I get out of this building. I guess I’ll figure that out once the cool spring air hits my bare legs.

All I know is that I can’t stop.

I press the call button for the lift, bouncing on the balls of my feet in impatience, not noticing that it was already rising before I pressed it.

I should have noticed.

I should have taken the stairs and run from who is inevitably about to step out of it.

I can add that mistake to all the others I’ve made this weekend.

“Fuck,” I hiss the second it dings, announcing its arrival.

I’m about to bolt to the right, knowing that whoever is in there can’t see me like this. If any of them find out… if it’s Nico.

Fuck.

But I’m too late.

“Calli?”

I spin back around the second the female voice hits my ears, and I breathe a massive sigh of relief when I find Brianna, Jodie’s best friend, standing before me with a cake box in one hand and a bottle of rose prosecco in the other.

“Oh… uh… hey. I gotta—”

I nod toward the now empty lift and run toward it.

“Are you okay?” she asks, despite the fact she can clearly see that I’m not.

“Yeah, great. You never saw me, okay?” I beg. I have no idea how trustworthy she is, but I really, really need her not to go blabbing to Jodie and Toby the second she gets inside his flat.

“Uh-uh. No, we’re not playing that game.”

Before I know what’s going on, she’s walking back into the lift with me and hitting the button for the ground floor.

“I’m calling an Uber. Where are we going?”

“Home,” I whisper, my bottom lip trembling as I realise that she’s going to help me escape.

“Uh… here, put it in.” She passes me her phone and with a trembling hand, I manage to get my address in so she can order a car.

“Was Alex really that bad a lay, huh? Did he even get you off, sweetie?”

“What? No. Yeah. Fuck,” I bark, dropping my head into my hands as a sob erupts.

“Here,” she says, and when I look over, she’s got a pair of knickers in her hand. “They’re new, don’t worry. They’re my emergency pair.”