Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
But somehow, Stellan Thorne has always been the one who has managed to fly under the radar. Somehow, he’s always been the one who has managed to stay in the shadows, avoiding this glaring spotlight that seems to follow these brothers everywhere they go.
The mysterious one.
The cold one.
The one who gets overlooked but maybe shouldn’t.
But perhaps it’s all a facade, huh?
Perhaps it’s all fake. He’s nothing like the good guy people think he is.
Which begs the question: why the hell am I so obsessed with him?
“So then what the fuck are you doing here?” he asks, his voice almost a growl.
A growl that reaches my clenched belly.
Because this is the first sign he’s shown that my presence affects him.
That anything at all about me is affecting him.
In a whole year.
And I can’t help but say or try to, “I’m… I want…”
I want you to kiss me.
I want you to want me.
I want you to be jealous. I want you to feel something for me. Someone else wants me. Your twin brother wants me. Why can’t you? Why can’t you want me enough to put a stop to all this?
Why can’t you want me at all?
That’s why I came.
Because I want him to want me. Because the game I started playing in my craziness, in his name has gotten out of hand and he still doesn’t care about me.
I burned the world down for him, but he’s still cold as winter.
But then again, I can’t force him, can I?
No matter how angry I am, how frustrated, how utterly devastated that he feels nothing for me when I feel everything for him, he doesn’t owe anything to me.
So my posture sags and my hands fall away from my arms. I look down at the ground that seems so icy that nothing will ever grow here. “I-I think I need to go.”
And try to find a way out of this mess I’ve made.
But as it turns out, I can’t do that.
I can’t go anywhere.
Because as soon as I tell him that I’m leaving, he comes out of the shadows. He shows himself, all towering and broad chested. And it’s not as if he comes at me in a flash, though, no. He takes his time. He prowls instead of strides. He leisurely approaches me, his cigarette clenched between his teeth, his hands in his pockets, his eyes pinned on me.
So saying that I can’t go anywhere may be an exaggeration.
I can absolutely leave if I want to.
I have time to run away.
But I don’t do that.
Like an idiot, I stand there and wait for him to reach me.
When he does, he slides his hands out of his pockets. Looking down at me and keeping the cigarette in his mouth, he pulls the front of his jacket apart. I watch the stick burning at the end, wispy smoke wafting as he rolls his broad shoulders and shrugs it off. Then, reaching forward, he swings it behind me and drapes it over my shoulders.
With my arms limp at my sides, I look up at him. “What are you doing?”
Adjusting the jacket on me with one hand and taking the cigarette out with the free one, he replies, “Saving you from yourself.”
This is why, I think.
This is why I’m obsessed with him. This is why I’m in love with him and I am, aren’t I?
Love at first sight.
Things that only happen in the movies, happened to me.
And it’s because he has a habit of protecting me. Because under all that ice, I have a feeling he’s got a heart that beats and beats oh so fiercely.
Oh so hotly.
As hot as his coat.
Hot like wildfire.
“I—”
I stop on a flinch.
Because his fingers brush against my elbow.
My left elbow.
Even though it’s through the fabric of the tux and his touch was light—he was simply fiddling with the sleeve—I still feel a sting on the tender spot where my mother pinched me earlier.
“What was that?” he asks, a frown between his brows.
I immediately fold my arms across my chest, cupping my elbow, protecting it. “Nothing.”
He glances down at my arms.
And I try to stand straight and tall, holding my posture from before.
When he still doesn’t look away, I say, “I think I’m going to—”
He looks up. “What did your mother say to you?”
“What?”
“Earlier. By the bar.”
His eyes are penetrating. So grave.
As bottomless as his voice that I can fall into.
“How do you know”—I lick my lips—“I was with my mother at the bar?”
“She said something,” he replies, his features sharp and tight. “What was it?”
“I thought you don’t look at me,” I say instead. “I thought—”
“Was it about your acting?”
I draw back. “My acting?”
“Yeah.” He keeps digging, his voice thick and low. “Was she giving you a hard time about that?”
I squeeze the bruised area as I keep looking at him.