Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 177397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 887(@200wpm)___ 710(@250wpm)___ 591(@300wpm)
I need to numb the ache, blanket the shame. I need to fucking forget, but she’s in every frame. I can’t get drunk enough to forget her.
I laugh like a madman when a voice from outside my office trickless through the chaos swirling in my head. “Follow their rules. That is all you need to do.” My father enters my office like I haven’t imagined killing him again and again and again since he shared the secret I plan to take to the grave. It is only one of the few joys I currently have. “Give Dr. Fairmont permission for the insemination.”
“No. I can’t. I don’t want to…” I stop before I say too much. I was going to say I don’t want to hurt Zoya like that. That the cruelness I unleashed the last time we spoke is enough for her to hate me for eternity. I can’t add more. Right?
When the denials come hard and fast this time, I give in. I hand over the strings and let the federation puppeteer me, because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.
I’m dead no matter what.
“Okay.” With my reply too soft for anyone to hear, I repeat it. “Okay.”
“Yes,” my father hisses like a snake while slapping me on the back. “Thank you.” He squeezes my shoulder and leans in close. “Your son thanks you.”
I don’t need to follow the direction of his gaze to know who he is signaling to. The heaviness it adds to my chest tells me everything I need to know, and it sees me cracking open a fresh bottle of whiskey like the empty one in my trash wasn’t opened only an hour ago.
57
ZOYA
Idip my chin in thanks to the doorman of Le Rogue when he holds it open for me. When I spot a taxi, I throw my hand in the air, signaling for him to stop before hotfooting it through the main entrance door.
I’m in such a hurry, I bump into someone entering.
“Sorry,” apologizes a voice from above before he bobs down to collect my belongings he knocked out of my arms during our collision.
I didn’t have much in my locker, but just like my bikini, I paid for them, so I’ll take them with me.
Amusement pumps out of my savior when he takes in the naughty secretary glasses and calculator I brought from home. They don’t quite match the sex toys Mars encouraged me to have delivered to work so they wouldn’t be stolen by my neighbors. They’re on opposing teams—as is my response when my savior lifts his head.
I appear to have acquired a stalker.
Bayli slowly stands like my shoulders are wider than his and my height is just as imposing.
His timid take frees me to ask, “Are you following me?”
“No,” he immediately replies, shaking his head. “I come here all the time.”
His size should make him intimidating, but it doesn’t. I met him before he was officially a man. That changes everything in an instant.
“Who’s your favorite dancer?”
His expression stonewalls before he murmurs out, “Ah… Trixie.”
It takes me a second to roll through the dancers’ stage names before I can call him out on his lie. “We don’t have a dancer called Trixie.”
“What the fuck?” Bayli replies, balking. “Every strip joint has a dancer named Trixie. Trixie, Angel, and Destiny. You’ll find one at every club.”
I laugh at his absolute assuredness before scooting past him. “You should have gone with Angel. We have three of them.”
I hear his huff before the stomp of his feet echoes off the brickwork outside Le Rogue. “What about Destiny? Do you have one of them?”
“We may, but you’ll never find out if you continue following me.” I point behind me. “The entrance is back there.”
He drags his eyes in the direction I’m pointing before returning them to me. After putting enough distance between us that all my swings will miss, he says, “I may be following you.” When I huff and walk faster, he jogs to catch up to me. “Not in a bad way.”
“There’s a good type of stalking?”
“Depends on who you ask.” He laughs at my eye roll before saying, “I wanted to ask you something, but I didn’t want to do it in front of Maksim and Doc.”
Doc is Maksim’s nickname for Nikita. It proves Bayli knows them more intimately than a random stranger, and the knowledge frees me to say, “You have five minutes. I’ve got shit to do—”
“I don’t need to know your bathroom habits.” He continues to see my eye rolls as approval of his poor comedic skills. “And I won’t need longer than five minutes.”
“You will if you keep stalling.”
“True. Ah…” A thousand words roll through his head before he blurts out four. “Have we met before?”
His question shocks me. I’ve been told so many times that I’m unforgettable that I’ve started believing it.