Free The Billionaire and the Con Artist: A Bad Boy Romance (Bad Girls Series Book 1) by Leanne Brice Page A
Authors: Leanne Brice
Taylor left me with a final lesson, the most important one of all: trust NO ONE.
Best to use people for whatever they can give rather than give them a chance to take from you when you let your guard down.
I finally leave the bed and search the whole room, from the bathroom to under the bed to the closet and find myself panicking even more as I realize she didn’t leave me a goddamned thing. She took everything I stole from Axel, plus everything I brought with me from L.A.
She took my tools of the trade: my fake IDs, my burner phone, the quickie disguises.
I knew she’d robbed me of the cash and watch, but I just figured she would have dumped my backpack somewhere, leaving me my own shit at least.
But that’s all gone too, even the disguise I came here in—the wig, the glasses.
I didn’t bother putting in brown contacts when I left the suite I shared with Axel, so my supply of those are also gone.
I’m left with only what I have on. What I really look like.
The panic is taking over quickly and I know I’m about to lose it, so I start taking deep breaths, consciously focusing on the act of deep breathing for a few moments to calm myself down.
I need a clear head now more than ever.
I guess this is the first time in a long while I met up with Taylor with everything worth a shit to me on me.
I should have left something behind in my L.A. apartment, something I could hide somewhere I know my roommate wouldn’t look and later show up for, claiming I accidentally left it behind. Some emergency stash.
Again, in yet another way, I broke a cardinal rule: never put all your eggs in one basket.
You should never put all your money in one place, and you should never put all your trust in one person.
I made it easy for Taylor to bleed me dry; I never figured out how to squirrel away for rainy days.
You’d think with the hauls we take in sometimes, we’d be able to save a good chunk here and there, but this sort of life teaches you it’s best to live in the moment.
You learn you can never really feel safe, that even if you squirrel away savings, risking opening bank accounts with all your real information attached, your assets can be frozen, garnished for taxes or something. Or someone might find out you’re using someone else’s ID and social security number, and you’re suddenly in a lot more trouble than no longer having access to that money.
Or you can come home and find the money you hid in your mattress or floor board or stuffed animal gone.
At any moment, your careful saving can turn into heart-plummeting loss.
So you learn to be prepared, all right—prepared for the worst.
For me, that pretty much takes the form of living it up while I can.
I’ll never forget this girl I met on the streets—Alicia.
She had all these plans. Despite her dreary circumstances, she talked brightly, hopefully about the future.
She had a stash somewhere—a stash that would save her, she was sure of it.
She happily talked about what she would do with it.
But the ex-boyfriend she’d fled found her and beat her to death.
She never got to use that stash, amongst other things. It probably could have helped her had she used it up getting further away him.
Obviously taking the future into consideration makes sense, but in some circumstances, you realize the future is promised to no one.
It’s up to you figure out how to do whatever you want with what you have right now.
At some point, I want to live on the record, but that’s clearly not in the cards anytime soon.
I’ve had legit jobs—babysitting, cleaning—and I know I can transition to a more legal lifestyle, but Taylor always found a way to pull me back in.
Like now.
I’m pretty much back to square one.
I feel so incredibly stupid, so immensely gullible. A feeling I’m not used to being on the receiving end of.
I’ve been had.
I realize I’m more upset about losing Taylor than my stolen goods, and even my ‘work supplies.’
Taylor was my only
Best to use people for whatever they can give rather than give them a chance to take from you when you let your guard down.
I finally leave the bed and search the whole room, from the bathroom to under the bed to the closet and find myself panicking even more as I realize she didn’t leave me a goddamned thing. She took everything I stole from Axel, plus everything I brought with me from L.A.
She took my tools of the trade: my fake IDs, my burner phone, the quickie disguises.
I knew she’d robbed me of the cash and watch, but I just figured she would have dumped my backpack somewhere, leaving me my own shit at least.
But that’s all gone too, even the disguise I came here in—the wig, the glasses.
I didn’t bother putting in brown contacts when I left the suite I shared with Axel, so my supply of those are also gone.
I’m left with only what I have on. What I really look like.
The panic is taking over quickly and I know I’m about to lose it, so I start taking deep breaths, consciously focusing on the act of deep breathing for a few moments to calm myself down.
I need a clear head now more than ever.
I guess this is the first time in a long while I met up with Taylor with everything worth a shit to me on me.
I should have left something behind in my L.A. apartment, something I could hide somewhere I know my roommate wouldn’t look and later show up for, claiming I accidentally left it behind. Some emergency stash.
Again, in yet another way, I broke a cardinal rule: never put all your eggs in one basket.
You should never put all your money in one place, and you should never put all your trust in one person.
I made it easy for Taylor to bleed me dry; I never figured out how to squirrel away for rainy days.
You’d think with the hauls we take in sometimes, we’d be able to save a good chunk here and there, but this sort of life teaches you it’s best to live in the moment.
You learn you can never really feel safe, that even if you squirrel away savings, risking opening bank accounts with all your real information attached, your assets can be frozen, garnished for taxes or something. Or someone might find out you’re using someone else’s ID and social security number, and you’re suddenly in a lot more trouble than no longer having access to that money.
Or you can come home and find the money you hid in your mattress or floor board or stuffed animal gone.
At any moment, your careful saving can turn into heart-plummeting loss.
So you learn to be prepared, all right—prepared for the worst.
For me, that pretty much takes the form of living it up while I can.
I’ll never forget this girl I met on the streets—Alicia.
She had all these plans. Despite her dreary circumstances, she talked brightly, hopefully about the future.
She had a stash somewhere—a stash that would save her, she was sure of it.
She happily talked about what she would do with it.
But the ex-boyfriend she’d fled found her and beat her to death.
She never got to use that stash, amongst other things. It probably could have helped her had she used it up getting further away him.
Obviously taking the future into consideration makes sense, but in some circumstances, you realize the future is promised to no one.
It’s up to you figure out how to do whatever you want with what you have right now.
At some point, I want to live on the record, but that’s clearly not in the cards anytime soon.
I’ve had legit jobs—babysitting, cleaning—and I know I can transition to a more legal lifestyle, but Taylor always found a way to pull me back in.
Like now.
I’m pretty much back to square one.
I feel so incredibly stupid, so immensely gullible. A feeling I’m not used to being on the receiving end of.
I’ve been had.
I realize I’m more upset about losing Taylor than my stolen goods, and even my ‘work supplies.’
Taylor was my only
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