What He Hides (What He Wants, Book Seven) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) by Hannah Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

you’re done with class, please call
me.   I will have Jared pick you up
and bring you back to my apartment.”
    “I’m going to the library after class,” I
said.   “So I can write up my report
for Professor Worthington.”
    “Good bye, Charlotte,” he said.  
    And then he hung up.
    I stared at the phone in my hand,
frustrated.   What was that supposed
to mean?   Did he want me to call
after I was done at the library?   Or did he want me to call after class and not go to the library?   I felt like the rules of his game were
ambiguous and fluid, always changing and morphing, making it impossible to keep
up.
    The train was pulling into the station,
and I boarded the car quickly, sliding into a seat and immediately pulling out
my iPad.
    There was a middle-aged man sitting on my
right with his legs spread wide open, a bag of cheese popcorn on his lap.   He munched loudly, and I did my best to
angle myself away from him. The New York City Subway Authority had just put up
new signs explaining good subway etiquette.   There was literally a poster over our heads that showed a
stick figure sitting in the exact same position as the man next to me, with a
big red X through it, indicating you shouldn’t do it.
    I tried to tamp down my annoyance as I pulled
up my internet browser.
    I typed “Audi James” into google and
waited.   The service was spotty
down here, and it took a moment for the page to load.   I held my breath, crossing my fingers that I’d find the
information I was looking for.   What if Audi James had no internet presence?   What if he was one of
those the rare people without a facebook page or a linkedin or an online
wedding announcement?
    Or, worse, what if there was no Audi
James?   What if whoever called me
phone didn’t know what they were talking about, or had done it just to fuck
with me?
Josh’s face popped into my mind again, the way he’d just stood there outside my
room after what I’d seen him doing, the way he’d denied it to Julia, even
though I’d caught him red-handed.
    Could he have made the call?   But why would he do that?   Just because he was
crazy and liked to toy with people?   Was it possible maybe he wanted me off the case, that he thought if he could somehow get rid of me,
he’d be able to slide in and take over, be the point person for Professor
Worthington?   That wouldn’t make
any sense.   Josh knew Noah hated
him, knew Noah would never stand for that.
    But still.   Was that why Josh had told me he didn’t think Noah was
guilty?   So it would put the idea
in my mind and he could send me on some wild goose chase?
    The search results popped into view a
second later, and it became instantly clear I’d had nothing to worry
about.   There were pages and pages
of results for Audi James – articles and websites and pictures and
anything else you could think of.
    Because Audi James was a murderer.
    I scrolled through, scanning the
headlines with my eyes.
    “AUDI JAMES ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF UPPER
EAST SIDE SOCIALITE”
    “WOMAN FOUND MURDERED IN PENTHOUSE
APARTMENT”
    “AUDI JAMES FOUND NOT GUILTY IN MURDER
CASE”
    I sucked in a breath as I clicked on the
Wikipedia page.
    I read the article quickly, taking in the
specifics of the case, trying to turn on my lawyer brain and distill, the way
they’d taught us in law school, trying to focus in on the details that might be
important, instead of the minutia of the case.
    I got the gist of it pretty quickly
– Audi James had been arrested for the murder of Rhonda Callahan, a
wealthy socialite, in her Upper East Side apartment.   Rhonda Callahan was married, but had been rumored to be
having an affair with James.   The
prosecution contended that the two of them had been involved in a bunch of
scandalous sex games – BDSM, swinger’s clubs, online sex shows, the
works.   The DA’s office painted
Audi James as a psychopath, the worst kind of sex predator, the kind of man who
forced women into playing