Read Royal Opposites for Free Online

out of her mind to be riding along with a complete stranger like this. Joan went over her options in her head and had to admit she didn’t have many. Options, that was. If she were honest with herself, she had to confess, part of her was glad not to be facing this nightmare alone. At least Tom seemed to have a plan. The only thing she could think to do at the moment was curl up into the nearest corner and bawl her eyes out. The fact he seemed so sure his plan would work is what kept her from demanding he drop her off so she could find that corner.
    She studied him. Joan could just make out his strong features in the dim light. The reddish tint from the brake lights of the car in front of them didn’t make it any easier. Her memory supplied his handsome features for her. Although, those features seemed a bit drawn in anger at the moment. Seeing that told her they were, indeed, in this together. Truth be told, she was ticked off, too.
    Who were these people that they felt they could just screw with folk’s lives like this? When she wasn’t feeling like an idiot for letting them bilk her out of sixteen grand, she was downright mad.
    Her hand clenched around her camera case prompting her to revise the figure. So it was sixteen thousand, eight hundred. Big whoop.
    That didn’t change the fact that she was on the run from a couple of the bank guards and the police who’d somehow been convinced she tried to rob the place. She glanced over at Tom’s strong profile.
    With him, nonetheless. What was the world coming to?
    She hoped his plan included some serious retribution beyond just straightening the mess out. Someone needed to go to jail behind this. And Joan was darn skippy it wasn’t going to be her. Memory of the news report surfaced and she bit back a groan.
    Joan’s face had been all over the television for everyone to see with the label “bank robber” beneath it. No. It was worse than that.
    They’d called them “attempted bank robbers”. So not only was she a criminal, but also incompetent. For some reason, the incompetent part bothered her a whole lot more than the criminal part. That clinched it. She was insane. Joan pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes.
    “Everything is going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.” Joan took one palm away to look at Tom. Whatever was in his expression calmed her accelerating heart rate. She had no reason to trust him, but Joan did. She nodded.
    “So, what’s the plan? Where are we going?”
    “It seems wise to put much distance between us and them.”
    So much for trusting him. “You think we should run? From the police?”
    “Joan, it’s not just the police.” His eyes narrowed and he rested his index finger along his top lip until he spoke again. “I keep thinking about the fact that the guards broke into our places.
    Both of our places. How did they know how to find us?”
    “They have our addresses on file,” Joan supplied, not quite following his logic.
    “Are you friendly with any of the employees? They know you by sight?”
    She snorted. “Oh, yeah. Pushing a person into serious debt is a perfect friend-‐-winning movement.”

    “Precisely. I know how they knew who I was. I’d swiped my card.” He looked at her. “But how did they know who you were?
    You were still at the back of the line.”
    Her eyes widened when she understood his line of reasoning. “That’s why we’re running. You don’t think we’ll be safe in police custody.”
    “I don’t think you’ll be safe–”
    Warming to the subject she talked over him. “You think they have someone at the station waiting to… kill us if we were to show up?” She gripped the seat belt in her rising panic. Someone wanted her dead. How did this happen? She was boring little Joan Smith who never did anything to rock her nice, safe, little boat outside of schooling an inept cashier here or there. Until this morning, anyway. The moment she’d decided to videotape her transaction with the