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)
“What happened after I left?” I asked.
He cracked a smug grin. “He said he was going to ruin me.”
Clearly, Haille loved the idea of someone trying.
“Where is he now?”
He gestured toward the door on the far side of the room. “Oz has eyes on him. He left yesterday morning but returned in the afternoon with three men. It appears he may be…disgruntled.”
Disgruntled was likely a gross understatement.
“Judging by your face, I would say you already knew he had returned?” Haille rocked back in his chair, eyeing me like he was gauging my next move. Like he might want to wager on it.
“I had a feeling.” I itched, fighting the fury that simmered deep.
He laughed.
“Do you know where he’s staying?” I pressed.
“Downtown at the Shillhire.”
The Shillhire was an upscale hotel about a mile down from my place.
Fucker.
He wanted to play dirty?
Fine.
I was ready to get filthy.
“That’s all I needed to know. Thank you for your help, Haille. I appreciate it.”
“Always.”
Then his smile shifted as I started to stand. “I think the more intriguing question is what happened with you and the girl after you left?”
I rebuttoned my coat. “I took her home. Where she belongs.”
Then I turned and walked out.
SIXTEEN
ASTER
I lie on my stomach on the bed with a blank journal I’d taken from that drawer that I’d slammed closed when I’d first found them.
Part of me wondered if Logan had stashed them there for a day like this, the way they sat there unused, waiting for a brand-new story to fill their pages.
For me to rip them out and fold them into a newfound hope.
Litter them between us so he could find his way back to me.
My hand flowed across the page, my concentration set on trying to decipher a feeling. To capture a memory. To walk into a better future.
Logan promised he would find proof, but in the end, this was my fight.
Something I had to do.
A reckoning between my father, Jarek, and I.
I’d drawn Logan into the middle of it, right into the most dangerous place he could be.
I didn’t know if it made me selfish or weak.
Greedy in my own, demoralized way.
Or maybe my heart wouldn’t allow me to believe anything else than he’d found me and I’d found him.
A crash course.
A collision.
One destination.
The words poured over the page as they sought to find new meaning.
New purpose.
As a new strength built from the reservoir where it had always lived.
I jolted when my phone rang out from the nightstand, my heart thrashing with a bid of nerves before I smiled when I saw the name on the screen. Reaching over, I tugged it free.
“Hi.”
“Oh my god, Aster Rose, what the hell is going on?”
My sister Taylor hissed it beneath her breath from the other end of the line. It might as well be the opposite side of the Earth with how out of touch I felt.
I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, glancing around as if I were doing something salacious, when that honor usually landed on Taylor. There was no shucking the instinct to check my back, to make sure no one was listening, that I could actually have a private conversation with my baby sister without someone running back to report to my father or Jarek.
The sound of a vacuum running from the other side of the apartment echoed through the door, the same as it’d basically been for the last three hours.
Gretchen was a machine.
“Give me all the details,” she pressed. “I’m literally dying.”
“I hope that’s not true,” I said, my voice wry.
Taylor harrumphed at me. “So literal.”
“That is what it means.”
“You’re so no fun.” I could almost see her pouting through the phone. It made me smile.
“What are you talking about? I’m a blast.”
“You’d better be having a blast.” There was the innuendo I was waiting for.
“Uh, let’s see, my worthless, piece-of-crap husband bet me in a poker game, and I was won by my ex…”
The one who still owned my heart, the one who I’d first believed hated my guts and was only in it to torture me, but now…
“The really freaking hot one?” It was a high-pitched whisper.
“That’s the one.” I saw no point in denying it.
She squealed. “Oh my god. I cannot believe you’re with him. This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it?” I deadpanned.
Because it was exhilarating and terrifying and possibly the most reckless thing I’d ever done.
“Well, it is if you’ve gotten up in the good dick because we know Jarek isn’t giving you any of that.”
“Taylor,” I hissed as I sat up. “What is wrong with you?”
“Well, have you? You can’t keep the good stuff from me.”
A heavy sigh filtered out. “Believe me, none of this is good.”
Except there was a glimmer of something good that hadn’t been there before.
A chance.
A way out of a life I hated leading. One my sister was most likely heading toward. Nineteen and ripe for my father to find her a good husband that would make him a good ally.