Original Sin by Samantha Towle Read Free Book Online Page B

and I don’t want that to change anytime soon.
    Zeff gives me a smile. “Sure. See you in five.”
    “Wait.” I turn to the coffee machine and fill a to-go cup, and press a lid on it. “On the house,” I say handing it over.
    “Thanks,” he smiles.
    The second he’s left the café Celine totters over in her crazy heels for a job where you’re on your feet all day.
    “Wasn’t he in here the other day?” she questions.
    I shrug, a noncommittal response.
    “Now that is one hot piece of ass,” she continues, eyes watching him through the window as he crosses the road and climbs in his car.
    Celine doesn’t mince her words. I don’t know if it’s the American in her, or just her.
    A small part of me does envy her straightforwardness though. I used to be like her, not as brash, but somewhere close. But now I have to keep all my doors tightly sealed shut. I can’t be the person I used t"0"o be.
    “Can’t say I noticed,” I utter, turning away to wipe the coffee machine down.
    She laughs, “Yeah, sure you haven’t. Do you know him?”
    “Kind of. We just met recently.” He saved me from a hungry vampire.
    “You dating him?”
    I stop wiping and cast a glance at her over my shoulder, “No.”
    She quirks her eyebrow at me. “You intending to?”
    “No.”
    She purses her lips, smiling. “Well if you’re crazy enough to not wanna tap that hot tamale then I sure am gonna.”
    With a giggle and a wink she waltzes off into the back, her heels clicking like an annoying tune, against the floor.
    Ignoring her comment I finish cleaning up the coffee machine, grab my rucksack from under the counter, and make my way out to Zeff’s shiny black BMW X5.

 
    Chapter 6: A Slice
     
     
    It turns out dinner is pizza, and it’s the best pizza I have ever tasted. Seriously. I’m honestly considering a marriage proposal to the chef.
    And no matter how much I may hate to admit it, I’m actually enjoying having dinner with Zeff. It’s been so long since I’ve sat down and eaten a meal with someone – so long since I’ve had a real conversation with someone. And he knows exactly what I am. There’s no hiding, no pretence, well apart from the fact my real name is Alex Jones, I’m on the run and am technically dead to pretty much everyone who knew and loved me. But yeah, apart from that, it’s great.
    “So it’ll be a week for the passport and your friend can do it for seven hundred euros?” I echo the words just spoken by Zeff.
    I pick up another slice of pizza and take a bite. Oh God, this pizza really is heaven; heaven with a capital H.
    “That’s what he said.”
    I swallow down my mouthful, put the half-eaten slice back on the plate and lean back in my seat. “Does he take payment in instalments?” I add a little laugh at the end, but it just comes out sounding weak.
    Finished with his own pizza, he wipes his mouth with a paper napkin. The guy really does eat quickly; I’m only half into mine. I’d be surprised if his stomach has had time to digest it. He chuckles and throws his screwed up napkin onto his empty plate. “How much are you short?”
    I do a quick count in my head. “Not so much short, this week’s earnings at the café, coupled with the money I already have will cover it, it’s just … I never travel without a set four hundred euros on me. It’d mean staying on another couple of weeks to earn the money to travel.e money
    “That so bad?”
    I pull a face, letting him know exactly how bad that thought is. I don’t want to be here for this week, let alone two more. I want to get as far away from this place as possible.
    “So I’ll give it to you.”
    “And why would you do that?” That came out sounding more like an accusation than a question.
    He leans back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest. Contemplating me from across the table, he compresses his lips together.
    “I’m sorry. That sounded … look I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.” I lay my palms flat out