Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 244(@200wpm)___ 195(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
He stared at me, his eyes never leaving me, my Damien.
My man.
I have to stop.
“Yes,” he said.
He turned without another word, leaving me here.
Lying back on the silk sheets, I wrap the robe even tighter around myself, struggling to believe I’m here.
I wake to a knock at the door, a dream clinging to me. I think Dad’s voice calls to me, telling me he’s sorry.
Then Nick is saying, go, go.
“Hello?” I call out, sitting up, sunlight filtering into the room through the gold-colored curtains.
“It’s me.”
Damien’s voice is flat, impossible to read, not at all like last night. Part of me wonders if I imagined all that closeness.
“I have clothes here,” he goes on. “I’ll leave them on the floor. The dining room is downstairs.”
“Uh, okay.”
“You can shower if you like.”
The words are harmless enough, but they make me sizzle.
Is he imagining what I’d look like in the shower? Is it turning him on?
But no, of course not. Why would he?
He’s been nice, fine. But he’d never be interested in me like that.
With a sigh, I walk across the room. I’m not sure if Damien is still there until he speaks, making me jump.
“See you downstairs.”
“Yes,” I say.
I bite down, feeling like a dork. There was something so weirdly awkward about the exchange. But then what did I expect? We’re strangers to each other, despite the conversation in the car.
Or, if he’s taken some sort of liking to me, it’s because of the tattoo. It’s because I’m marked. He wants to make up for what happened.
He pities me, nothing else.
Opening the door, I take the bundle of clothes.
After showering in the world’s highest-pressure shower, I change and head downstairs. The clothes are simple sweatpants and a hoodie. I’m still wearing my bra from last night, but there was a pair of clean, simple boxer-brief style underwear.
I feel a little self-conscious as if Damien’s even going to see it. I need to calm down those impossible thoughts.
Damien stands when I walk into the room. In the morning sunlight, he stands next to a table, a spread laid out. Large paintings stare down from three walls. It’s like a Russian noble’s chambers or something.
Damien looks at me in a way I can’t read.
He’s wearing a T-shirt, showing off his rugged arms. His pants are casual. His arms seem to bulge the harder he stares, his hands tight on the back of the chair.
“Can I sit?” I ask with an awkward laugh.
Everything feels different in the sunlight, like he feels bad about oversharing in the car last night.
He nods, the corner of his mouth twitching in a maybe-smile. “Sure.”
I take the seat opposite him, my belly grumbling as I look over the pastries, bread, meats, and cereal. My hands instinctively move to cover my belly as if I can take the sound back.
If Damien notices, he doesn’t show it as he pours himself some coffee. He inclines his head.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I say, grabbing a piece of toast and buttering it.
I stare down at the knife moving across the bread.
It’s easier to focus on that than on him.
“What happens next?” I ask when the silence gets to be too much.
He places his cup in the saucer, the clink making me jump way more than it should. It’s like he’s going to let the beast out any second, but I know that’s all in my mind, in my wildest wants, maybe.
“I’ll need to return to the city,” he says. “Perhaps Gabriel will calm down. I’ll need to arrange a meeting. Things are in motion, but we may be able to stop them. It will be casual; nothing is done out in the open.”
“Then what? I go back to my regular life?”
He stares at me, those intense eyes glimmering. For a second, I think he’s going to say I belong with him, only with him. But then he looks away, out the window at the garden.
“I’m not sure,” he says. “We’ll have to see. You’ll be safe here.”
“What do I do? Wait?”
He frowns, eyes going dark. “We could’ve avoided this, Liliana. You took a risk, saying what you said.”
“Even if it’s the truth?” I snap. “Even if Dad was trying to do the right thing?”
He moves his forefinger around the rim of his cup. “Your father was a good man, from what I know. I’ve heard from reliable sources he was turned sour by the Cartel’s drugs.”
I stare at him, rapt, eager for any morsel about my dad.
“I remember the drugs. And the drinking. He tried to be a good man, though. He did.”
Damien nods. “I’m sure that’s why he worked with the police. He was sick of the drugs. But he didn’t know I was sick of them too. That the Bratva was. He should’ve come to me, not the cops who the Cartel had paid off.”