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

a
thing was possible but she wasn’t going to stop now. Come hell or high water,
she was going to end this journey without questions poking at her brain.
    Nolan startled
when she walked in and Vince, engrossed in something on his tablet, didn’t
realize anyone else was in the room with them until Nolan cleared his throat
meaningfully. “Darling, this is a surprise,” Nolan said, moving forward as if
to embrace her but Penny put her hand up, stopping him. He frowned. “What’s
wrong, pet?”
    Vince looked up
and mirrored his brother’s expression. “What’s going on?”
    “I need answers
and since everyone in this family seems reluctant to share, I’m here to get
what I need straight from the source. No more dancing around the past, no more
patting me on the head as if I’m some ninny without two tufts of straw in my
head. I deserve to know what the hell happened to the woman before me.” At
that, Penny tossed the manila envelope so that it landed on the coffee table.
“In that envelope is all the information I managed to find on Isabel Walker.”
    Nolan and Vince
stared at her as if she’d just thrown down a bloody head. “What are you doing?”
Vince said, standing to grab the envelope, his movement sharp and agitated.
“Why can’t you just leave it alone? She’s dead. End of story.”
    “No, it’s not end of story for me. I need you to
resolve this issue or else we’re through,” Penny said, holding her ground even
though her insides had begun to tremble. “Don’t you see how her death has
affected you all? I’ve only known you for a relatively short time but in that
time I’ve come to see a few things that maybe you can’t because you’re too
close to the situation.”
    “Penny,” Nolan
began, trying for patience but he was just as uneasy about the prospect of
talking about the past as his twin. “I can appreciate your curiosity—“
    “Whatever happened
to Isabel is the reason Dillon wants to destroy you — the reason he
used me to get to you so don’t you dare try to tell me that it’s none of my
business or else I’ll scream like a Victorian with a gent’s hand on her ankle.”
The twins stared in consternation and she muttered a quick, “You know, because
the Victorians were so prim and proper — never mind — the
point is, I need answers and you’re going to give them to me.”
    “And why would we
do that?” Vince said with quiet calm that she didn’t trust one second and
probably meant he was mad enough to choke a nun but she was running on pure
chutzpah and the dogged belief that if she could get these people talking,
things might start to make sense in her world. Maybe she was delusional and all
this sharing was going to blow up in her face but she had to try. “Nowhere in
our agreement did it state that you would make demands and we would capitulate.
You’re overstepping your bounds, sweet pet.”
    “Perhaps. But I
don’t care. Besides, you and I both know that there’s no way we can simply go
back to the way things were. Not now.”
    “Perhaps if you’d
kept your legs shut around Dillon we wouldn’t be in this position,” Vince
growled and she gasped in hurt surprise at his vulgar statement. Nolan sighed
and shot his brother a quelling look, which Vince dismissed with a glower.
“This is total bullshit. If I wanted to be peppered with nagging questions, I’d
have taken a wife by now. If you want to be interrogated, by all means, stay,
but I’m out of here.”
    “Vince…” Nolan
said, stopping him with a firm hand as he attempted to brush by. Penny willed
the sudden moisture away as her bravado quailed under the fiery heat of Vince’s
dark mood.   “Stay. She’s right. We
need to tell her.”
    Vince stared,
unable to believe his brother’s statement. “I don’t enjoy talking about the
past when there’s nothing that can be done about changing it,” he said in a low
tone. “Why can’t we just leave her in peace?”
    A current of
understanding