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CHAPTER ONE
TWO DAYS AFTER Christmas, in the soft pink Honolulu dawn, Josie Dalton stood alone on a deserted sidewalk and tilted her head to look up, up, up to the top of the skyscraper across the street, all the way to his penthouse in the clouds
She exhaled She couldn’t do this Couldn’t Marry him? Impossible
Except she had to
I’ her tattered backpack higher on her shoulder I’d marry the devil himself to save my sister
But the truth was she’d never really thought it would come to this She’d assumed the police would ride in and save the day Instead, the police in Seattle, then Honolulu, had laughed in her face
“Your older sister wagered her virginity in a poker gaame?”
“Let ht Your sister’s billionaire ex-boyfriend won her?” The second scowled “I have real crimes to deal with, Miss Dalton Get out of here before I decide to arrestyou for illegal ga”
Now, Josie shivered in the cool, wet dawn No one was co to save Bree Just her
She narrowed her eyes Fine She should take responsibility She was the one who’d gotten Bree into trouble in the first place If Josie hadn’t stupidly accepted her boss’s invitation to the poker game, her sister wouldn’t have had to step in and save her
Clever Bree, six years older, had been a childhood card prodigy and a con artist in her teens But after a decade away fro instead as an honest, impoverished housekeeper, her sister’s card skills had become rusty How else to explain the fact that, instead of winning, Bree had lost everything to her hated ex-boyfriend with the turn of a single card?
Vladi Josie back to the mainland on his private jet She’d spent her last paycheck to fly back, desperate to get Bree out of his clutches For forty-four hours now, since the dreadful night of the gaether because she knew that, should everything else fail, she had one guaranteed fallback plan
But now she actually had to fall back on the plan, it felt like falling on a sword
Josie looked up again at the top of the skyscraper The s of the penthouse glea clouds of Honolulu
She’d caused her sister to lose her freedoe to
Vladireatest enemy
His younger brother
The enemy of my ene the way the Xendzov brothers had tried to destroy each other for the past ten years, Kasiht?
A lump rose in her throat
I would marry the devil himself
Slowly, Josie forced her feet off the sidewalk Her legs wobbled as she crossed the street She dodged a passing tour bus, flinching as it honked angrily
There was no backing out now
“Can I help you?” the door her messy ponytail, wrinkled T-shirt and cheap flip-flops
Josie licked her dry lips “I’et married To one of your residents”
He didn’t bother to conceal his incredulity “You? Are going to marry someone who lives here?”
She nodded “Kasimir Xendzov”
His jaw dropped “Youwildly “Get out of here before I call the police!”
“Look, please just call hied my mind My answer is now yes”
“Call hi of the sort” The doorer “You must be delusionalif you think you can just walk in off the street”
Josie ruh her backpack