The Bad Billionaire's Seven Kiss Negotiation novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Amended

Jo's POV

On Thursday morning Lila read the newspaper to me across the breakfast table, in the voice she used for bad news and good gossip.

"'Hawke Admits Holding Back Evidence for Five Years,'" she said. "Subhead: 'Billionaire Says He Used It to Get Close to Witness.'"

"Give me that."

"He gave them everything, Jo. The folder, the dates, the flowers. He says, quote, I had no right to keep it from her, and I'm not asking anyone to excuse it."

I read it twice.

He had put his name on every line.

He had not said I was innocent, and he had not said I was guilty, and he had not once used me for cover.

"I told him not to," I said.

"You told him not to hide behind you. This is the opposite."

"It's going to cost him the Hawke Logistics deal in Rotterdam."

"Yes. It says so in paragraph nine."

My phone buzzed with a message from him, two lines, with no greeting.

I did not follow the rules. I'm sorry. I'll keep to the doorway after this.

Lila watched my face.

"You're smiling."

"I'm not."

"You've got your mouth doing the thing."

"It's the radiator."

The radiator in our new kitchen was a cast iron monster older than my mother, and it knocked.

"It's been knocking since Monday," Lila said innocently. "And you did say Ansel was good with his hands."

"I said nothing of the kind."

"You said it in your sleep."

I threw a dish towel at her.

That night the knocking started at eleven.

I stood in the doorway of the bedroom in an old T-shirt, listening to it, and Lila put her head out of her room.

"I'm sleeping at the dorm tonight," she said, with her coat already on. "Loudly. For a reason."

"Lila."

"There are earplugs in the drawer if you change your mind."

She was gone before I could answer.

I picked up the phone and typed one sentence.

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