Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“I’ve never heard you swear before,” she commented absently.
Rhobes exhaled like he was exhausted. “There are plenty of other words to choose from. Especially when one speaks five languages.”
“Aren’t you a good little student.” She closed her eyes and pictured the man in one of his European-cut suits with the slim slacks and the double-vented, double-breasted jacket. “Where do you keep all those merit badges.”
“In my downstairs bathroom so the guests can admire them, of course.” There was a silence. “You could have just sold me Vita-12b, Catherine. It would have avoided much unpleasantness.”
“I told you to make an offer. Instead, you raided my scientist.”
“You would have done the same in my position. Gus St. Claire is worth more than that one particular cancer drug. He’s a pipeline in and of himself, so you can keep your drug, Catherine. I hope it replenishes your dwindling accounts.”
You don’t know, she thought as she almost laughed. It’s Gus’s now.
“Hello?” Rhobes said. “Have I lost you?”
The paperwork turning Vita-12b over to Gus had been delivered the day before by one of her guards—and even though there had been a raft of unopened mail on the carpet underneath the postal slot in the front door, Daniel had found the document out of its envelope. So Gus had clearly read it. And he would have brought his ownership position up with Rhobes as soon as he could, because it made them no longer employer/employee. They were partners.
But that conversation had evidently not occurred.
C.P. rubbed the back of her neck. Why would Rhobes kidnap the very man he had hired?
Maybe she’d heard the man wrong about the Tesla’s location.
And if Gus’s abductor had known what that paperwork was, surely the document would have been taken with them?
“When I call you,” she said, “you answer your phone.”
“I picked up this time, did I not.”
“Every time. You answer my fucking calls, Gunnar.”
The chuckle that came over the connection was almost affectionate. “So crass for a woman of your stature.”
C.P. ran her hand down the fleece. “I’m not worried about stature anymore.”
“How fortunate for you. It will make your reversal of fortune an easier adjustment.”
“You know, Rhobes, I was almost not despising you for a moment there.”
“Oh? Why was that?”
“I was enjoying how much you don’t know about things. But then you had to go and remind me who I was talking to.”
“Reality is what it is, no matter who is commenting upon it.”
“Just answer my call.”
She hung up on him as she’d wanted to, a solid crack sounding out loudly as the receiver hit the cradle. Imagining the supercilious bastard sitting in his skyscraper office in Houston and ripping a cell phone away from the side of his head made her smile a little. She hoped the ringing in his ear lasted awhile.
Turning back to the windows, she searched the forest line for the doe. The tender-footed sweetheart had not made another reappearance, and as C.P. considered what kind of predators could be lurking in the pines and maples, the bucolic acreage loomed like a threat rather than a haven for the delicate animal to seek protection in.
The cold winter was coming. Where would she find enough food?
C.P. felt the weight of her palm on her abdomen, thought of Gus St. Claire… and could no longer fight the realization that had been growing on her for the last day or two.
The reason she always found herself resting a hand there when she thought of him?
She wished the baby were his.
There. She’d said it.
Thought it.
Whatever.
She reached out for the phone before she was conscious of wanting to pick the receiver up again. Dialing a shortcut, there was only one ring before her guard answered.
“What did you find,” she barked as she put her hand back on her lower stomach. “Where is my doctor.”
FIVE
ARE THEY ALL outta here?”
As Daniel spoke up from his recline against the pillows, Lydia had an urge to pull some covers to his chin. Bring him chicken noodle soup. Go for the Tylenol and maybe the Nyquil. The way he was lying there, so still, his breathing shallow and uneven, suggested he was uncomfortable and determined not to give in to how bad he was feeling.
How she wished this were only a cold. The flu. Food poisoning.
“Yes, they’re gone.” She hesitated at the foot of the bed, wondering if she should shift the duvet over his legs. “Do you want to eat—”
“You’d have thought the closed door would have stemmed the tide.”
“The doctors are just trying to help.”
Sitting down next to him, she took his cold hand and rubbed it in her own as she glanced around the bedroom suite they’d been sharing since the spring. The accommodations were slick and luxurious, but they were a hotel room, really, nothing personal anywhere, the sophisticated, but stark, decor nothing she would have chosen, nothing she could have afforded. She wished they had a proper home, filled with things collected over time, and permanently placed because the two of them had no intention of moving. Rocking chairs that creaked by the fire. Quilts that had been handmade to curl into on cold nights. Copper pans in the kitchen, braided rugs to cushion the feet, plants nurtured in sunny spots flaring green and lush.