Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Agate eyes fluttered open. A murmuring of affection. A haunting of old hope. It was dimmed by the years of cruelty that had separated us.
She stretched out her hand. “Stay.”
I hesitated, then I kicked off my shoes and undressed down to my briefs and undershirt.
She lay on her side, her head on her pillow, and she stared at me through the shadows.
She sighed when I climbed in and laid beside her.
Reaching out, I brushed the hair from her face. I leaned in and pressed my lips to her forehead, her temple, her chin.
Then I spread my hand across the side of her face as I pressed my wandering lips over the soft curve of her mouth. They barely moved.
It was the softest caress.
A promise.
An oath.
The truth.
“You’re mine.”
EIGHTEEN
LOGAN
LOS ANGELES, EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD
“Why are you hiding?”
Logan felt the smile pull to the edge of his mouth when he murmured it to the wind. His eyes remained upturned toward the starless, Los Angeles sky, though every fiber of his being was tuned into the presence that hovered behind the wall of an outbuilding.
He sat on a bench in the rambling gardens, lost in a maze of foliage and trails that stretched out far beyond the pool behind the mansion.
In the place that had become his sanctuary. In the place where they met.
“I have to,” she whispered back, the way she always did.
He fought it, but his smile grew. “Are you going to get into trouble?”
Aster Rose giggled, a slight flush rushing her soft cheeks as she stole a glance around to make sure they were in the clear.
With the way the sight of her punched him in the gut, you’d think it was the first time he’d ever seen her. How his stomach flipped and his chest tightened.
“No. I’m going to get you into trouble.” She gave him the same warning she gave him every time. Like she was waiting for the day he would turn her away.
Logan smirked. “Do I look like the kind of guy who cares? Besides, I’m pretty sure it would be worth it.”
Her cheeks were red as she nibbled at her bottom lip, this shy, bold girl who had twisted up his mind and become his best friend.
She felt like more than that, though.
Like she might be everything.
Like there was a reason he’d been consigned to this place of depravity and greed.
Where nothing cost too much and where one misstep could cost you everything.
Where he worked his magic into corruption.
For the last six months, Logan had spent his evenings and well into the night forging false documents, making dirty money look clean, and investing in places where it would grow.
He’d made himself valuable. He knew it. Andres Costa had said it himself. The man had filled Logan’s pockets with portions of what he’d earned. Promised him more if he kept performing the way he had.
Logan had tried to keep his nose to the paper and his fingers out of the wickedness, just like Trent had warned him to do, but that was hard when you’d become an integral piece of it.
But he knew what he was doing with Aster Rose was more dangerous than any of that.
He’d never even touched her, but his mind was all over her.
He pushed to standing when she gave him the go, and he took a furtive glance around, too, before he slipped behind the building hidden by high shrubs and bushes, out of sight of the guards and cameras.
Not that there was a whole lot of attention on this area.
Andres Costa’s concern was keeping threats out. Well, that and his daughters in.
Aster slipped down onto a patch of grass. Logan sat beside her, and he fought the urge to reach out and touch her sweet face when he did, tried to ignore the way his heart raced and his blood pounded.
Sure, he’d been with girls before, but this one…this one had him losing sleep and acting rash.
Dangerous ideas and reckless acts.
He wasn’t even supposed to look at her, and there they were, sneaking out to meet each other whenever they got a chance.
When he’d found the piece of paper folded into a star where it’d been tucked under the logbook he often worked in, his heart had sped, the way it did every time she left him a secret message.
Nine, was all that it said.
Prime time for his dinner break.
“How are you?” Aster murmured, peeking at him like maybe she felt the way he did, too.
“Good, now that you’re here.”
Her lips pursed. “That bad?”
Logan shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“You hate what my father is making you do.” It wasn’t a question, just soft understanding.
Really, it was his father wielding the command. Two men who were radically different and basically the same.
At least Aster’s father seemed to maintain some semblance of humanity.
He blew out a sigh and returned his gaze to the hazy glow of the city sky.