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Inside the first box was a smartphone that looked like it’d been transported back from the future I’d be able to call Jess with my proof of life a week early--and eventually h what I would tell her about all this, I didn’t yet know

The other boxes--from stores like Cartier, Harry Winston, Miki jewelry: a triple-strand pearl choker, sapphire earrings, an e bracelet That bracelet was so heavy and substantial, I could deflect bullets with it, à la Wonder Wo to Sevastyan, I joked, "There must be a million dollars’ worth of jewelry here"

When he held up his palesture, I cried, "Oh, my God There is!" I inhaled a shaky breath This situation was too wild--and overwhel back to school to chess with my billionaire father

This was my "new life" for the "foreseeable future"

I crossed to a set of balcony doors, opening thean to fall over hts came to life all across the property

When Sevastyan joinedof connection swept ain But he was all coolness towarda two-storyAs with the lake folly, its colors and architecture complemented this palace There was a sleek black Mercedes in the drive, much like the one he’d rented in Lincoln

"My home," he said shortly

"You live on the property?"

"Da Though I have an apart to s Such as watching hi up at hi at this et that sexy scar down his lips? Who’d broken his nose?

Had anyone ever kissed that slightly askew bridge for hi in Lincoln"

Shrug "I return downstairs now"

I followed him back inside "What do you need to talk to Paxán about so urgently?"

Over his shoulder, he said, "I do have private concerns with hi to tell hi his head around at me "There is no us," he said with such vehemence that I al to admit that I behaved inappropriately with you I owe hi about Kovalev, but the truth was that I didn’t know him well What type of punish? "Howhis cool, but then I also couldn’t picture hi politicians

"At you? Not at all As for ry than I a to piss ot here, and everything is wonderful with Paxán Why rock the boat when you and I barely did anything? I held off on despoiling you You were relatively safe fro you not toso trivial"