Taking Jana (Paradise South #2) by Rissa Brahm Read Free Book Online Page A

What was the difference anymore between twenty dollars and twenty thousand? Or two hundred grand even?
    At one time, while selling her soul, dancing on top of her obliterated moral compass, the cash she’d have lying around, all stuffed in shoeboxes and tucked under her mattress, was too much to count. And as she inserted her key to unlock the glass door of the Park family’s walk-up , her overactive mind heard her mother telling her to “smile” at the doctor. Why not say, “Land him, Jana!” She cringed at the thought. Being with a man for his money wasn’t something she was capable of. Her mother could keep her fantasies because that’s all her mother had. And as for her mother’s reality, Jin Park could keep that too. If Jana wanted to be a trophy on a leash, she’d have snagged one of her doting club regulars years ago.
    No, she’d be deeply connected and enthralled and in total symbiosis with whomever her future partner would be. A long time away, though, not until she cleaned up her parents’ new mess. Because she couldn’t burden anyone else with this load; she had her pride and she had a conscience. Even if her parents so obviously did not.
    But, she’d admit at her lowest points, like now, it was tempting to just connect with a man who had resources. But she also remembered the daytime talk shows she’d zoned out to for the years she worked nights, disbelieving the women who had strategized marrying rich. The thought made her ill, especially knowing that the husbands those women manipulated around the chessboard to hit their wallets, well, those men had been coming to her for lap dances every week. She’d have none of that. No marriage of convenience, no money contract. She’d rather stay alone than ever, ever buy in.
    The musty stairwell smell was familiar enough, but the hint of seafood and pickled cabbage in the air was what hit home. She watched the top of the stairs get closer, her purse threatening to fall off her sagging shoulder and her roller bag thumping up each mocking step, each thud making her flinch as the throbbing in her head marched to the beat.
    Jana got to the top, got the house door open, and fell into the cluttered apartment with a surrender and a disdain that matched the energy of her ER on a night of a massive city train wreck.
    Tossing her purse and dropping the roller bag where she stood, she moved her limp body to the brown plaid couch, the one she’d known as a child, the very same. She’d offered to replace the repulsive thing a billion times over, but her father would have none of it. He’d take what will no doubt be hundreds of thousands from her now—actually, again!—but not a new couch.
    Her hands went up to her pounding head, fingers massaging her temples. Not helpful, not a dent of relief. Exhale.
    Sleep? Eat? Neither was even thinkable.
    Action. She had to do something. She had to attack.
    She grabbed her purse and headed back down the stairs fumbling through the clanking ring of unmarked keys as she went. God, how many times had she told them to label the keys? Taking no care on the steps, she stumbled but caught herself on the rickety banister. Her heart pounded through the scare until her fingers found the jagged silver key by memory. She caught her breath and put the key into the side door at the bottom of the stairwell.
    *
    The chairs were up on the larger round tops, but the two-tops lining the walls were still dirty, chairs only pushed in by the assumedly rushed closing kitchen crew, unmonitored since ten hours ago, so why would he or she or they give a shit, right? The floor had definitely not been swept, but again, who, if not her father, would be there to say—or yell in her father’s case—a thing about it. There was a makeshift closed sign hanging on the front door, but she’d definitely need to give her and her mother at least two days’ leeway. She pulled the paper down, grabbed a pen from her bag and hand wrote, ‘Until further notice, due