Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
I was at the church in forty minutes. Keeping my head down, I walked in and discovered Father Manwarring waiting for me.
“Why is your mother requesting I confirm your arrival?” he asked, looking at his phone.
“She is controlling like that,” I answered, staring at the floor.
He put his knuckle under my chin and lifted my eyes to meet his. His face froze as he took in my injuries.
“Who did this?”
CHAPTER 18
THOMAS
My heart pounded in my ears as I looked at the damage done to my angel.
My angel. She was mine to torment, no one else’s.
The room was filled with other people milling about, a few for confession and other priests. I needed to talk to her, but I couldn’t do it here.
“Come with me, do not say a word,” I said, putting my hand on the small of her back and leading her through the back of the church to the rectory.
I couldn’t see anything around me, just what was directly in front of me. All I could feel was the small of her back under my hand, and my pulse racing.
I directed her down the long hallway to my private library, or at least what I had claimed to be my private library, pushed her in, and locked the door behind us.
“What are you doing?” she asked as I turned on the lights.
I said nothing, too angry to speak.
Instead, I swept her off her feet, brought her over to the large mahogany desk, sat her down on the desktop, and kissed her lips. Not claiming them, not demanding anything, just needing to feel that she was all right.
“Stay there,” I said before going into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit with the hydrogen peroxide and the antibiotic cream. I didn’t want her to feel any pain, any panic. This wasn’t a time to play with her emotions while pretending to care for her.
This time I cared.
She was permitted to feel pain only when it was by my hand and part of my plan. This time was due to neither and therefore her pain was unacceptable.
I set the first aid things down by her side, then pulled her off the desk to her feet to remove her pink trench coat. The grayish blue dress she wore underneath reminded me of the ocean raging before a storm. It was appropriate because that was exactly how I felt.
Setting her back on the desk, I wiped away the makeup covering her bruises and her cuts to get an idea of how bad the damage was.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“A little,” she said.
“Who?” I cleaned the wounds as carefully as possible, grateful when I saw they weren’t too deep and probably wouldn’t scar. Still, I applied the ointment liberally to help her heal and bandaged them properly.
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” I bit out, a little harsher than I intended.
She responded with a cold, cruel half laugh, half snort. “This is what happens when I disobey my mother. Actually, I didn’t even disobey her. This happened when I told her I didn’t want to do something that she demanded.”
“Mary Quinn did this to you?” I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I didn’t think she would leave such obvious marks on her daughter’s face where anyone could see them. She was getting too bold, too brash, and she desperately needed to be taken down a few pegs.
My timeline was going to have to be moved up.
“She’s done worse. This is nothing. What do you think she’s going to do to me when she finds out about you?” Rose’s eyes looked blank, like it was just a foregone conclusion that I was going to tell her mother everything.
Wasn’t it?
Wasn’t part of my plan to expose our little dalliance, destroy Rose’s reputation, and take Mary Quinn down with her?
“Fuck, angel…I—” For the first time since I had put this collar around my throat, I was at a loss for words.
“Where is she now?” I asked, rage simmering in my body and needing a way out.
“At home, I think.”
“You think?”
She took a deep breath, blinked back the tears that were building in her eyes and then looked at me directly again. "It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing you can do.”
“I didn’t ask you what I could do. I asked you where she was.”
“When I left, she was at home choosing her dress for the gala. I know that she’s planning to go to the bank to put something in her safe deposit box before heading here for the charity board meeting in a few hours. I’m assuming she’s going to be home until it’s time to head to the bank.”
“She has a safe deposit box? Why?”
“I really have no idea. She’s never told me what’s in it. I don’t know why she doesn’t just use the safe at home, but she makes weekly visits.”