Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Then at seventeen, I was unwittingly swept up in his world, seeking a wildness to distract me from my despair, taken in by his good looks, thrilled by the danger. Until one night he locked me in a room with two men, intending to share me with them, when Sloane turned up. I later learned she was desperate for money for her and Callie, and she’d come to Nathan for help. Instead, she ended up saving me. My personal avenging angel.
I was stupid and combative, and Nathan started whaling on me. Sloane jumped in to help and I managed to grapple Nathan’s gun off him, but I accidentally shot Sloane in the arm.
Nathan lost it. He beat the living daylights out of me and he would have killed me.
But Sloane shot him and got me out of there.
Somehow we ran through the neighborhoods with me fighting unconsciousness the whole time. Before the lights went out, I told her who to call. My dad. He took care of everything. Nathan went to jail. I wouldn’t tell my family what drove me to drugs, drinking, and the thug, but I was scared shitless enough to go to rehab and tell a therapist.
In thanks to Sloane for saving my life at great risk to hers and Callie’s, Aria, who had just accepted a job at Ardnoch Estate, offered Sloane a job there. She moved to Scotland with Callie to work as a housekeeper. It was there she fell in love with Walker Ironside, a security officer on the estate. He’d once been a bodyguard to the stars, and when Nathan got out of prison and started making trouble for Sloane again, Walker stepped in to protect her. It turned out Sloane’s stepmother had put Nathan up to the business of killing Sloane for her inheritance. Really. You can’t make this shit up.
Anyway, both Sloane’s stepmother and Nathan will rot in prison. Nathan will never breathe free air again.
Through it all, Walker and Sloane fell in love, got married, Walker adopted Callie as his own, and nearly four years ago, Sloane gave birth to their little boy Harry.
It was a full house but, despite the friends I’d made in Ardnoch, Sloane was the person I felt closest to after Aria. We’d been born into the same world and we’d experienced the same feelings of neglect from our parents, and we’d both been driven off the rails of a privileged life. She got me in a way most people, including my sister, didn’t.
I felt safe to run to her, and she never turned me away whenever I did.
“You’re sure I’m not putting you out?” I asked quietly that night as Sloane led me into Callie’s bedroom.
She shook her head, handing me a pair of clean pajamas. “Callie is sleeping over at a friend’s house.” She smirked, although there was worry in her eyes. “Or that’s what she tells me.”
I frowned because Callie and Sloane had the kind of mother-daughter friendship dreams were made of. Callie even spent a lot of her free time at the bakery, learning from her mom, and had plans to work alongside her once she graduated. “Callie wouldn’t lie to you.”
Sloane glanced over her shoulder as if to make sure Walker wasn’t in hearing distance. When she turned back to me, she whispered, “Callie Ironside would lie to the angels if it meant getting to spend time with Lewis Adair.”
My lips twitched. Ah, young love. I wondered what that was like. “You think she’s with Lewis?”
Her brown eyes filled with worry. “I hope not. I love my girl, but I do not want her to follow in her momma’s footsteps. If she comes home pregnant at sixteen, Walker will kill Lewis. And though I do not want a pregnant teenage daughter, I love Lewis. I’m grateful my kid fell in love with a boy like him, and I really don’t want Walker to end him.”
I nodded. They’d moved to Ardnoch when Callie was ten years old. She was almost seventeen now. Lewis Adair, Lachlan’s brother Thane’s son, had been in Callie’s class and they’d become fast friends. Over the years, that friendship had blossomed into more. Since she was thirteen years old, Callie had told me openly and often that she wanted Lewis to be her boyfriend. Lewis had taken a little longer to catch up. When Callie went on a date with another boy, he’d finally cottoned on. They’d been seeing each other for over a year, the epitome of teen love.
“They’ll be smart,” I whispered, trying to assuage her concerns. Even though the thought of little Callie Ironside having sex made me feel old at twenty-five.
Sloane had not appeared entirely convinced as she bid me good night. “And text your sister back or I will,” she warned before she closed the door.