Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 35767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 179(@200wpm)___ 143(@250wpm)___ 119(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 179(@200wpm)___ 143(@250wpm)___ 119(@300wpm)
She didn’t mind staying at school.
A couple of girls were always forced to stay there. It was fun. They had a club, the Our Parents Hate Us Club. Kind of funny.
Maybe that was why she didn’t care that her parents had died?
Still no tears. Not even a shred of regret.
Nothing.
Just nothing.
Making her way downstairs to the fridge, she saw it was a little past lunchtime, and she got to work making a sandwich. Figuring Luca would be in any moment, she grabbed another plate and made him one as well.
She even put a few of those weird pre-cut vegetables that couldn’t be good for anyone. Before they went on his plate, she washed them thoroughly.
No one knew who had mauled them prior to going in the bag.
Just as she was taking out two sodas from the fridge and closing the door with her hip, the back door opened. The scents of soil and grass permeated the kitchen. It was a smell she really liked.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. I was hungry.”
“Can you cook?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“I have a cook that comes in a couple of times a week. The freezer should be full with meals. I’ll ask her to add something for you as well.”
“Okay.” She sat down at the counter. “I made this for you.”
She moved his plate across the granite counter.
The sound of it scraping seemed to get on his nerves, and for some messed-up reason she found that really funny but kept the smile off her face.
Picking up her sandwich, she took a bite as he walked to the sink.
He bent forward, and she stared down the line of his body to his ass. The pictures on the internet didn’t do him justice. He’d bulked out a lot since he’d gone into hiding. She had no doubt as to why.
He’d been the star of the show. The pristine little piece of human jewelry the world like to show off. People young and old had always flocked to him. It was clear to see why at the time. The scar he’d been given had turned him from being a shiny new toy to something ugly. They wanted to hide him, or at least he wanted to hide himself.
It was a shame. She found the scar made him interesting, giving him way more character than the dollar signs in his eyes ever did.
Also, there was a darkness that swirled around him.
“You doing your homework?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She hadn’t touched her schoolwork since coming here. She had more fascinating things to do, like explore his home and watch him.
Schoolwork paled in comparison.
Chapter Two
Taking care of a teenager wasn’t that hard to do. Luca smirked as he sat down at the dinner table after two weeks of living together. Not that he knew all that much about her. Far from it.
Mavis never spoke to him unless he started the conversation, and then she rarely gave him more than one-word answers.
Sitting back in his chair, he checked the time and gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to wait for her to start his dinner, but he was getting tired of her lack of timekeeping.
He was about to go and shout for her when she entered the room.
She was wearing a pair of jeans and a shirt that looked like it belonged on a boyfriend, and he wasn’t pleased at all.
In fact, he felt a little spark of jealousy that she may have a boyfriend and that was why she was playing with her cell phone when she first entered the room.
“Put that device away,” he said.
She slipped it into her pocket, and he watched as she took a seat.
Again, no words.
He loved hearing her speak, and yet he rarely got the chance to hear actual words.
She sat opposite him, her long, raven hair tied back at the nape.
He’d left his hair to fall all around his face.
Some of his hair had fallen across his scar. He didn’t know if he did this on purpose or if it just came naturally.
The soup in front of them was delicious, one of Susan’s favorites to make for him. It was getting colder now. Each passing day he felt it as he tended his garden.
It still made him smile to think of himself doing anything with a garden, yet he enjoyed it. The beast within him that wanted to go back into his world and make those sons of bitches pay was always soothed by the garden.
Mavis picked up her spoon and began to eat.
He noticed her fingers tapping against the edge of the table. No sound came from the action she was doing it that lightly, but he found himself drawn to it.
They were small fingers, no nails as they’d been bitten down.
He didn’t want to have another meal in silence.
This woman—no, girl, no, woman, whatever the hell she was—would be in his life for a considerable time now. She got full access to her trust fund at twenty-one. He knew how the world worked, and he’d make sure she was always set for life.