Free Bought by the Billionaire Brothers 6 by Alexx Andria Page A

likely,
neither realized or would admit: deep down, they were all good men. If there
was a kernel of goodness inside them, with the right encouragement, it could
bloom and grow. But how was she supposed to make that happen? And even if she
could, should she? Maybe she ought to cut ties completely. She could give back
the money and break the contract. Penny stilled. Was she ready to make that
bold of a statement? Was she ready to completely walk away from everything
associated with the Buchanans? A part of her offered a weary yes but the other
part said no. At the moment she didn’t know which part was stronger or why. All
she was certain of was that she needed more answers before she made her
decision and if no one seemed eager to share details, she’d just have to find
them on her own.
    Dillon was in the
worst mood of his life.
    It’d been a
mistake to see Penny again — what had he been thinking?
— and now she was in his head. Everywhere he turned, his brain
played tricks on him. First, he thought he caught a whiff of her perfume, then
he thought he saw her walking by but each time strangers stared back at him. He
was losing his mind.
    He shouldn’t have
said the things he had to Penny when he saw her at the park. If it were safe to
say she coaxed the best out of him, it was certainly fair to say she had the
equal and opposite effect on him as well. She’d floated into his life unexpectedly,
a ripe vision in a blue designer dress, and she’d put her stamp on everything
he’d touched since. He couldn’t blame his brothers for wanting her —hell,
he’d taken one look and knew in that instant that he would have to have her
— but he chafed at the realization that Penny had stayed with the twins
even after everything had gone down in the Hamptons. He knew she was conflicted
by her arrangement so why did she choose to stay? The right thing to do
would’ve been to simply ask her point blank but his mind had turned to mush and
a jealous rage had taken over making it impossible to think straight much less
put together a persuasive argument.
    And frankly, what
the hell did he care that she was still shagging his brothers? It was her
business, not his.
    Because it did.
Holy hell, it bothered him more than a little. The knowledge made him want to
beat someone to a bloody pulp — mainly his brothers.
    The last time he’d
felt such passion for another human being, that person had ended up taking her
own life, which wasn’t really a ringing endorsement for allowing it to happen
again. But how was he supposed to walk away when there was something tugging at
his chest, pulling him straight toward Penny?
    Penny walked into
the library of the twins’ palatial mansion and for the first time ever, didn’t
suffer from a serious case of awestruck-itis .
She clutched a manila envelope to her chest of research she’d spent the
afternoon uncovering through no small amount of effort as she’d combed through
newspaper archives and paid a small sum of money for the police report, with a
newfound resolve. After finding the newspaper clipping of Isabel’s swan dive,
Penny knew she couldn’t stop there. She needed to know more about Isabel as the
person and began to dig even deeper. She managed to find Isabel’s high school
transcripts and even though she didn’t know what use it could be to her to know
that Isabel had tanked economics her senior year, Penny felt almost sleuthlike
as she strode through the halls. Perhaps she was riding on the adrenalin or
maybe she was just too frazzled to care about the consequences but she finally
felt on top of her game for the first time since…well, forever.
    She didn’t know if
the change was temporary or permanent but she liked the way she felt after spending
an afternoon chasing after the ghost of a woman she’d never known. Somehow, it
felt as if the answers she sought were necessary to start the healing for
everyone involved. Maybe she was being a silly twit for even hoping such