Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
I can’t get the damn thing off.
“Stop.” He puts a staying hand over mine. “Don’t take it off.”
“I thought it was a gift, not a monitoring system.”
“It is a gift. I meant it as a gift.”
“It just does double duty as a tracking system for your pet girlfriend. Isn’t that how people make sure if their dogs get lost, they can find them? I guess this is much more efficient than putting posters of me up in the neighborhood if you misplace me.”
“Will you listen to me and stop talking just to vent your anger?”
“I get to vent my anger.” I stand up and pace in front of the bench. “Me talking only when you want to hear me and shutting up when you don’t like what I have to say is not communication.”
“I know that, but if you work yourself up—”
“You mean like a tantrum?” My harsh laugh is an explosion of white, puffy air that disappears as quickly as it comes. “Make up your mind, Maxim. Am I a pet or a spoiled child?”
He drops his head to the back of the bench and sighs. “When I gave you the bracelet, it was our first date in ten years, and I didn’t think that was the best time to bring up…tracking you.”
“Is there ever a good time really? Right after sex? Over morning coffee? Before a dangerous service trip?”
“I intended,” he continues, sitting up and looking at me without acknowledging my sardonicism, “to tell you when you came back from Costa Rica, and I didn’t activate the chip. I wouldn’t have done that without your permission.”
“Well, you don’t have my permission.” I fumble with the clasp again. “Take your damn tracker back.”
He’s in front of me in seconds, towering over me and pulling my hands to his chest. “Stop. Please listen to me, and after we talk, if you want to deactivate the chip, we can, but I would like for you to keep the bracelet because I wasn’t lying about why I gave it to you.”
He dips until our foreheads kiss. My cold skin against his impossibly warm. “I found you when you were seventeen.” He lifts my hand to kiss my wrist. “I found you again in Amsterdam.” He brushes his lips over my knuckles, setting a thousand feathers free in my belly. “And I found you after a decade of waiting for just the right moment.”
“Is it really finding when you arrange the meeting, coerce a television host, and recruit your brother?” I ask dryly.
“Details,” he says, his husky laugh dusting my fingers and chasing the cold away for the space of a breath. “My point is, this bracelet is significant. It’s symbolic of the fact that I’ve been all over the world, but you are my one place.”
I close my eyes, scrambling to reinforce my defenses but failing with him so close. “This is not okay, Doc.”
“I know. Let me explain.”
I nod, fixing my eyes on the compass charm dangling between us like it will guide this conversation and tell me what to do, how to feel and respond.
“Like I said, my plan was to have this conversation when you returned from Costa Rica and ask your permission to activate the chip after I’d explained to you why I think it’s necessary, but you were taken.” He closes his eyes and swallows deeply. “And I hated myself for not talking with you before you left and activating it. At first, Grim couldn’t pick up the signal. You guys were in the jungle or forest or somewhere so remote, he had trouble.”
“We were in caves part of the time.” My pulse picks up and sweat breaks out on my lip and forehead in the freezing cold remembering the helplessness with that bag over my head and the dank smell of the cave filling my nostrils. “Why do you think it’s necessary?”
“There have been eleven attempts to kidnap me.”
My eyes zip up to meet his, and fear crawls over me, making my hands clammy. “Eleven?”
“Yeah, but none were ever successful because I have great security.”
I look around meaningfully. “They seem to be lax on the job.”
“You won’t always see them, but they’re never too far away. The K&R insurance CamTech was going to use to get Wallace back—I have a K&R policy, but it’s worth a lot more.”
“I can imagine.”
“Can you? If I die or something happens to make me even slightly vulnerable, that could drastically affect our stocks, investments, and every person employed by every one of my companies all over the world. Their spouses, their kids. Their futures.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I sound like my dad. He used to talk about satisfying investors, keeping shareholders happy, and taking care of employees and their families. I didn’t get that then, but I do now.”