The Present Deal (Riley's Holiday Collections)

Readers say: "Well played, Ms. Murphy. You are a master storyteller!"



She was stunning. Wrapped up tightly like the best kind of gift.

But there was a reason she came to me this way.

Spoke to me this way.

Taunted me this way.

Her watchful gaze was steady, so I had to ask, “Tell me, Ms. Crawford. Is there a point to this visit, or did you insist on meeting with me today in order to save my soul?”

“Tough to do that when you don’t have one.”

The silence that followed that statement got adrenaline coursing through me. I recognized very clearly why my heart rate was picking up speed. She’d verbally slapped me in the face and I wanted to verbally slap her right back. I narrowed my eyes and spoke slowly. Softly. Carefully. “If you believed that, then you shouldn’t have said it. A man with no soul is capable of doing the unthinkable. “Is that what you want, Ms. Crawford? Me to do the unthinkable to you?”

“Maybe…for a price.”

And there it was. The present she wanted to give me. Now the only question that remained, was why?

“I’m listening…”