Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106159 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
I’m hot all over from his offer, but there is one part of his comment I can’t let slip. “Are you not coming to bed with me?”
Dark hair flops down his forehead when he shakes his head. “I have a handful of matters to take care of first.”
I step closer to him, noticing the tic his jaw got when we entered Taylor’s room hasn’t slackened in the slightest. “Anything I can help with?”
“No.” He appears grateful for the offer. “But if that changes, I will let you know.”
Confident he is being honest, I let him lead me to the ginormous bathroom attached to the master suite with his hand on the small of my back and the other teasingly tickling the skin on my nape as he unbuttons my dress.
24
NATALYA
As my eyes lift from the cardboard wallet in my hand to the numbers on the hotel doors I’m stumbling past, I count down the number of rooms left to pass before I find mine. It is a little after midnight. I’m dead on my feet, and I wish I’d dressed for comfort instead of fashion before trekking through a sightseeing metropolis, but since the marvels I was seeking were younger and more hip than my mother's, I went for heels instead of flats.
I sling my head back to my mother’s bodyguard, Ryke, when he says, “This is me.”
My lips twist when he points to a door at the opposite end of the one with my number on it. My father usually ensures a bodyguard is bunked in the room beside mine. Considering Saka was instructed to stay home during this unplanned trip, I expected Ryke’s room to be connected to mine.
“Do you want me to sweep your room?”
He looks as exhausted as me, so I shake my head. “I’ll see you in the a.m.”
He grins and signals for me to enter my room first. I roll my eyes before swiping my keycard over the digital lock and pushing open the door. A groan rumbles in my chest when I realize it is one of those hotels that require you to put your keycard into the slot for the lights to work.
After dumping the heels I peeled off during the long elevator ride to the penthouse suites, I slide my hand down the wall, seeking the card slot. I didn’t drink enough for my head to be this dizzy, but I also couldn’t read any of the ingredients on the drinks list, so for all I know, I could have been drinking pure alcohol.
“First thing tomorrow, download a Latin translation app.” I save my voice memo into my calendar with an alert before heading to the massive bed in the middle of the room, stripping as I go. I’m sure the views of the Colosseum and ancient ruins are gorgeous, but they’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I’m zonked.
I am partway across the room when I’m scared frozen. “Where have you been, Natalya?”
I’m well past tipsy, but not even a diagnosis of drunk would have me mistaking the snapped tone of my mother.
She switches on the lamp next to the bed calling me to it, then folds her arms over her chest. My mother is a beautiful woman with a heart as cold as ice. She had children because it was expected, and even then, she kept the number manageable.
I am her only child.
“You were requested to be back at the hotel by six.”
“We only landed at four, and I’ve never been to Rome, so—”
Just like when my father and I couldn’t stop talking about our family getaway in San Francisco, she cuts off my excitement with harsh words, “You are not here on vacation.” She steps closer, towering over me. I must have gotten my short height from my father’s side. My mother is several inches taller than me. “Our family needs you, but you’re galivanting around Rome like a tourist.” She yanks on the collar of my dress, fixing it into place before tackling the dark circles under my eyes with a spit-covered finger. “Stand straight. You look utterly unkempt.”
“Does it matter? I’m going to bed.”
If she grips the collar of my dress any firmer, she will snap buttons. “We must always present our best self.” I roll my eyes when she goes for a regularly versed line. “Makeup should not be removed until after your husband is asleep, and it must be replenished before he wakes.”
“No man with any type of status wants a slob for a wife,” I mouth at the same time she speaks it.
Once my shoes have been returned to my feet, and my dress pressed by her hands, she says, “I organized for all the necessary items to be placed in your bathroom.” I suck in a sharp breath when she murmurs, “If you must orgasm, keep your moans to a bare minimum.”