Page 42 of Tangled Lies

“Oh, Carrow. I hope we don’t need to be ugly. I’ll do as you need, but let me be helpful to you.”

He patted my hand as we stopped at an elevator where he pushed the button to go up.

I wasn’t sure what the next move should have been. I thought I could get some info from my uncle, but now? What was I about to walk into?

“Are you looking for those pathetic looking guards? You won’t need them anymore. I’ll hire my own to watch you.”

Guards?

“Did they look pathetic? My uncle seemed to think they were rather effective.”

Carrow pulled me into the elevator, and as he did I turned to scan the crowd for any of them and couldn’t find a single one. For all my newfound confidence, I suddenly felt the poison that was dread trying to crack the part of me that tried to stay strong and keep going.

“Margaux, I didn’t like the way they looked at you. A good security detail doesn’t covet what isn’t theirs.”

His fingers grabbed my chin as he said the words.

“I’d hate to hear my future bride’s innocence be questioned purely because she was led astray. I’ll ensure you are well guarded by men I choose.”

The elevator didn’t take long. It dinged, and we got out and started walking down the long hall of the third floor of the hotel.

“Carrow, I’m just curious, but do those men look like men you’ve seen before? I feel like maybe you’d have seen them gambling, in a high-rise casino, with a girl on your arm that isn’t me.”

I giggled playing the Margaux Harrington card while pushing buttons I wasn’t sure I should and really didn’t care. We stopped in the middle of the hallway.

I looked up for the first time since getting off the elevator, but he was still looking straight ahead.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.

He started to move and stopped again.

“Are they familiar, Margaux?”

I shrugged.

“Familiar to whom? Me or you? I obviously know them.” I stood on my tiptoes and whispered, “I know them very well.”

My back hit a door in the blink of an eye. The pain broke a floodgate within me. A flood gate of crazy. I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Margaux, your uncle and my father expect this deal to go through. Your uncle has the legislation ready to go. A few more senators and a few more backers, and it’s signed and sealed. The old Lux casino is gone. Your uncle is ensuring that the land stays within our hands.”

His hand slid to my throat.

“Now move, fiancée. You’re a part of this whether you like it or not.”

I followed trying to swallow the laughter.

I’d lost it and didn’t care. Carrow had kept talking, and I wasn’t sure what any of that shit meant, but I had a feeling Ronan and the boys would. We stopped outside room 311. Okay. Good feeling gone.

Carrow placed the keycard on the door lock and it opened.

“Get inside. If you’re tainted goods anyway, maybe you can get this deal signed faster.”

Carrow pulled out some papers that were tri-folded from inside of his jacket. The lights were all off except for one near a small sitting area. Not a penthouse, but larger than expected from the outside.

“You must be Thorne’s boy? Tell me, what has him sending you and this tasty little treat?”

I cringed.