five
We know you’ve been watching her. The letter felt ominous, and I felt my heart racing for a few seconds as I stared at it. Surprisingly, though, it didn’t frighten me. I was more curious, and a part of me wondered if Larry wasn’t already starting to play his own games. I wondered who had sent the letter. Who could know or care that I was watching Bianca London? I knew that it wasn’t David—he wasn’t that subtle. If he had known, he would have freaked out. He certainly wouldn’t have sent a letter.
The second letter told me to go back to the coffee shop. There was no reason why and I didn’t know if it was a setup. But I didn’t really care. I wanted to see her again. She’d been in the back of my mind since she’d started dating David. I hadn’t seen her again and David gave very few updates. It was almost as if he were falling for her—or at the very least he was finding her a challenge. Bianca London wasn’t like most girls. She hadn’t fallen for his handsome face and she hadn’t thrown her body at him just to get the answers she wanted. She was focused completely on meeting Mattias. I almost felt sorry for her in a way. Such a losing goal all around. She was attempting to meet someone who didn’t exist, and the whole Bradley family was onto her.
It was like David trying to take on Goliath with his hands and feet broken. She had no chance. She had nothing. No money. No property. No nothing. Her father hadn’t had much to leave her, and that infuriated me. Would it have hurt my dad or David to give Nicholas London something as he’d departed the company? He and my dad had once been as thick as thieves. It seemed unfair that Bianca had been left with nothing after her father’s death.
The next letter arrived a few months after Bianca and David had broken up. I wasn’t really sure what had gone down, but I knew that he was mad that he’d never gotten to sleep with her. It made me respect her more. She had principles and that was important. It was a pity that she’d had the parents she did. It would make it harder to bring her down knowing that she wasn’t some sort of social-climbing gold digger. Though for all I knew she could have been a good actress. She was still trying to get information about Bradley, Inc., and it seemed that she wasn’t letting her investigation go.
I decided to follow the directions of the second letter and go observe her at the coffee shop because Larry had called a meeting. I was pretty confident that I knew what was going to come up—they were going to ask me to take her to the island. They were worried she’d find something out before the upcoming Bradley merger and they didn’t want any scandals coming out before the paperwork was signed. Larry was smart enough to see that David was running the company into the ground.
It was really a win-win for me. I’d get to spend time with Bianca and figure out what she knew about her parents’ interference in my mother’s life. Maybe her father had left a journal that would explain what had happened. I needed to put myself in a position where she could trust me and open up to me. Then, of course, I’d take over Bradley Incorporated. Once the merger went through I’d be able to focus on bringing David to his knees.
Seeing her at the coffee shop was a shock to my system. Maybe it was because I’d been thinking about her so much, but the reality of seeing her there, her face looking tense and full of worry, affected me in a way I didn’t think that it would.
“Can I have this seat?” I asked her softly as I stood behind the empty chair at her table. I wanted her to look up with her sweet smile and say, “Yes, of course.” However, there was to be no sweet smile today.
“Uhh, sure,” she said, typing away, her eyes never leaving her computer screen. I took a seat and stared at her as her eyes moved back and forth over the screen. She appeared to be deep in thought and I wondered if she’d found something about my family.
“Can I have some space on the table?” I needed her to make eye contact with me, but she just pulled her laptop toward her. My stomach churned as she continued typing. “I don’t mean to disturb you,” I said, but still she didn’t answer. I stared at her for a few seconds, wondering what she would say if she knew who I was or if I called her by name. I almost felt like tapping her on the shoulder and saying, “I know who Mattias Bradley is and you don’t,” but of course I didn’t. That would be childish and foolhardy. And then she looked up, her eyes meeting mine for a few seconds, and I couldn’t help but smile at her ink-stained lips as she brushed her hair back slightly.