Читать книгу The Billionaire Renegade - Catherine Mann - Страница 11

Three

Breanna Steele still struggled with thinking of herself by her birth name. She’d been Milla Jones for over fifteen years. It felt like longer, in fact, since the Brea days were distant, muddied by so many factors since the plane crash.

Pushing away her in-flight meal, she pressed her fingertips against the cool glass of the airplane window. Since the plane crash all those years ago, flying sent her stomach into knots. Particularly when the private jet was so small, just like that aircraft all those years ago. But the transportation had been chartered by the Steeles. Snow-covered mountains sent her nerves into overdrive so she returned her focus to the main cabin.

Her lawyer accompanied her, a young attorney who’d taken her case pro bono, looking to make a name for himself. He was cutthroat. All the more reason to trust him with a future so scary and unsure.

Taking the flight offered by the Steeles had made her nervous, but ultimately it was the logical thing to do. She’d also been very clear in her acceptance that she’d left safeguards in place if anything happened to her. The world would know exactly where she’d been.

People thought she was acting paranoid. She didn’t care.

She tore apart the roll, tossing the pieces into her bowl of uneaten salad. Stress had taken a toll on her appetite. Since the death of her “adoptive” parents last year, she’d been unable to resist searching for answers about her past. Her mind was a jumble. She’d been brought up by a couple—Steven and Karen Jones—who’d protected her from the threats of her family’s crooked connections.

She’d been told her Steele siblings died as well in the crash and the accident was such a haze, she’d believed it. Steven and Karen had insisted they were keeping Brea safe from threats existing in her birth father’s world.

Finding out after the Jones’s deaths that her real dad and her siblings were alive had been a shock, one that started a steamroll of questions about other things. Still, loyalty to Steven and Karen, who’d saved her, was tough to break. She’d told herself they lied about her siblings to keep her safe from her father, who’d orchestrated her biological mother’s death. Brea still believed that to a degree. So much so that she could only envision meeting with the Steeles with lawyers present for her safety—and so she didn’t end up in jail.

There was also the whole matter of her wrangling a job at Alaska Oil Barons Inc. under her fake name and leaking business secrets. She’d wanted revenge for their abandonment. Now she was beginning to realize things might not be that simple. But she still needed to be careful.

As the plane began its descent into Anchorage, she shivered. Afraid, but resolute. The time had come to face her past, to make peace so she could move forward free of any entanglements with the Steeles.

Free of the pain of realizing they never really searched for her.

Never could she be a part of the Steeles’ world of lies and a fake sense of family.

Felicity found disentangling her feelings when it came to Conrad Steele was easier said than done. Their simple ride together had left her more confused than ever.

Fidgeting with her long, silver necklace, she looked at her half-eaten turkey-and-hummus sandwich. She contemplated grabbing it off the pile of vintage travel books she’d used to decorate her office. Unlike her coworkers, Felicity didn’t have many pictures of family and loved ones plastered in every square inch of her office.