Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 630(@250wpm)___ 525(@300wpm)
She shakes her head. “No. Thank you.”
I pop the remainder into my mouth, pleased that I managed to get her to eat more.
“DJing?” she asks.
“You know, in a club. For people to dance to. I DJ a couple of nights a month in Hoxton.”
I glance at Alessia, who is staring blankly at me.
She has no idea what I’m talking about.
“Okay, I’ll have to take you to a club.”
Alessia’s look is still blank, but she continues to tap her feet to the beat. I shake my head. How sheltered was this girl’s upbringing?
Given what she’s experienced, not so sheltered. What horror has she endured? My mind races, my thoughts depressing me.
But then I recall her confession in the car park.
She escaped.
Escaped!
“They wanted us to be clean…we would bring a higher price.”
I exhale.
I hope, for her sake, that she managed to avoid any horror. But somehow I doubt it. The journey alone must have been a nightmare. I try to grasp the magnitude of what she’s been through and what she’s achieved. She escaped. Found a place to live. A job. And she escaped again this afternoon from my flat. While she has nothing, she’s one resourceful young woman: ingenious, talented, courageous, and beautiful. My heart swells with unexpected pride.
“You really are something, Alessia,” I whisper, but she’s lost in the music and doesn’t hear me.
* * *
It’s after midnight when I pull up the gravel drive and park outside the garage of the Hideout, one of the luxury holiday homes on the Trevethick estate. I don’t want to overwhelm Alessia with the Hall—maybe that can happen later. The truth is, I want her to myself. There are too many staff in the great house, and I haven’t figured out what I’ll say about her or to her about the estate. Right now she doesn’t know who I am, what I have, and what my birthright entails. And I like that…I like that a lot.
She’s asleep. She must be exhausted. I study her face. Even in the harsh glare of the garage’s security light, her features are soft and delicate in repose.
Sleeping beauty.
I could look at her for hours. She grimaces briefly, and I wonder what she’s dreaming about.
Me?
I consider carrying her into the house but dismiss the idea. The steps down to the front door are steep and can be slippery. I could kiss her awake. She should be woken with a kiss, like a princess. I’m being ridiculous, and I remember that I’ve vowed not to touch her.
“Alessia,” I whisper. “We’re here.”
Opening her eyes, she regards me sleepily. “Hello,” she says.
“Hello, beautiful. We’ve arrived.”
Chapter Eleven
Alessia blinks the sleep from her eyes and peers through the windshield. All she sees is a piercing light above a large steel door and a smaller wooden door to the side. The rest of the view is shrouded in darkness, though in the distance she hears a faint rumble. With the heater off, the frigid winter air infiltrates the car. Alessia shivers.
She is here. Alone with him.
She shoots him an anxious glance. Now that she’s sitting in the dark, with this man she hardly knows, she wonders at the wisdom of her decision. The only people who saw her leave with him were Magda and the security guard.
“Come on,” Maxim says, and, climbing out of the car, he goes to the trunk to retrieve her bags, his shoes crunching on the gravel.
Dismissing her unease, she opens the car door and steps onto the gravel.
Outside, it’s cold. She huddles into her anorak as the icy wind whistles in her ears. The rumble in the distance is louder. She wonders what it is. Maxim puts his arm around her, in a gesture that she suspects is to protect her from the cold. Together they walk to the gray wooden door. He unlocks it and pushes it open, ushering her ahead of him. He flips a switch inside the gatepost, and small lights embedded in the side of the flagstone steps light the path down to a stone courtyard.
“This way,” he says, and she follows him down the steep steps. An imposing contemporary house lit by uplighters in the ground stands before them. Alessia marvels at its modernity—all glass and white walls, bathed in light. Maxim unlocks the front door and guides her inside. He flips another light switch, and subtle downlighters illuminate the alabaster space with a soft glow. “Let me have your coat,” he says, and she shrugs out of her anorak.
They are standing in an open hallway beside an impressive cloud-gray galley kitchen that’s part of a vast wood-floored room. To the rear there are two turquoise sofas with a coffee table between them, and beyond that shelving stacked with books.
Books! She admires them and notices another door beside the shelves.
This house is so big.