Icy Pretty Love Read Online Free Page A

table.
     
    Sam: I’d call the police.
     
RG: Just play along! How would you want this new person to act? You know, to make things easier for you, as a grumpy and obviously antisocial person who is not used to this kind of thing?
     
    Sam: Easier?
     
RG: Yeah, easier. Because say maybe this new person feels a little bad about busting in and changing your life all unexpectedly. What would you want them to do?
     
    Sam: Leave me alone.
     
    RG: Is that what you’d want the person to do or what you want me to do?
     
    Sam: Both.
     
    RG: Just leave you alone? That’s it?
     
Sam: It sounds like the person you’re talking about is used to being alone. Maybe they want to keep it that way.
     
    RG: But that sounds depressing.
     
Sam: You obviously don’t know much about them if you’re asking a stranger for advice, so I doubt you know what’s depressing for them and what isn’t.
     
RG: So what you’re saying is that I should try to break him out of his shell a little, so I can get to know him better and figure out what’s depressing for him and what isn’t?
     
    Sam: No.
     
    RG: Thanks for the advice! <3
     
    Sam: Ugh.
     
    ~3~
     
    There’s something about waking up in a bed that probably cost more than you spent on rent in the last year that gives you a new lease on life. Or at least a new lease on Cohen Ashworth.
    No matter what trash can the universe scraped his personality out of, I’m living with him for a month. So we got off on the wrong foot—so what? This guy seems like he gets off on the wrong foot with everyone. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from my job, it’s that first impressions can be deceiving.
    After all, this Sam guy is also a giant jerk, but without him, I’d probably still be wandering the streets of Paris. Maybe Cohen has the same kind of compassion, all wrapped up in a spiky ball of jerkface.
    So, at five a.m., when jetlag snaps open my eyes like an alarm clock going off, I get to work.
    Cohen’s still not home, which means I can blast more clubby French pop as I clean the whole place. This mostly involves stacking papers. I peek, but they make as much sense to me as the French newspapers strewn on the couch. Business stuff, numbers and accounts. I make four neat piles on the coffee table.
    Then I search the kitchen. No food. Nada. The fridge makes a little poofing sound when I pull it open, like it hasn’t been touched in the last century. Either Cohen orders room service for every meal or he survives on air and the blood of his enemies. Neither tastes as good as my home cooking, so when it seems late enough that grocery stores might be open, I head out in the same dress I wore yesterday.
    “Bonsoir, Baldy!” I call to the doorman on my way out.
    “That’s good evening, miss. You want to say bonjour,” he says crisply. There’s a lot of judgment in his little tweedy eyes. He’s the only one besides Cohen and Assworth Sr. who knows what I’ve been hired for. I wonder if Cohen will order a hit on him, like a mob boss. I could come back to marble floors splattered with blood.
    “If they come for you, claim ignorance!” I shout behind me as the doors close.
    The French air is cool and damp, like stepping into one of those mist booths they have at fairs. All around me, people in black trot to their respective funerals—I mean, work. There’s an inordinate number of little dogs. Fresh bakery smells are coming from a little store on the corner, so I stop and eat my way through something like a giant hamburger with fluffy pastry instead of buns and light, cloudlike cream instead of a patty.
    I am going to get so fat, and it’s going to be beautiful.
    Armed with my new Assworth credit card, I storm the nearest grocery store. Fresh eggs, mushrooms, garlic, chives, red peppers…I load up with everything I’m capable of carrying. On my way back, I hit the bakery again and pick up two fresh baguettes. Then I pass a cheese store and buy two big, expensive domes of goat