Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Yeah. Um…” With words eluding me, I complete my reply with a nod.
My throat works through a hard swallow when Rafael pads closer. His shoulders aren’t as broad as Ark’s. I could easily squeeze by him if needed. My limbs just feel suddenly too heavy to attempt an escape.
Or perhaps I am intrigued.
Ark didn’t just steal my shampoo.
He’s been using it as well.
That’s shocking and somewhat enthralling. I took so long to wash Tillie’s vomit from my hair because I didn’t want to lose the scent of Ark’s aftershave on my neck. Could he possibly be trying to maintain the same infused scent?
I’m pulled from my thoughts when Rafael removes the bottle from my hand and inspects the label. It shouldn’t give anything away, but he homes in on the evidence as if he is Sherlock Holmes. “Is this your shampoo, Mara?”
“No,” I push out. “I don’t think s-so.”
I am a terrible liar.
I know this, and so does Rafael.
Mercifully, he doesn’t call me out as a liar.
Not directly, anyway.
“I was just asking because if it was yours, I could replace your bottle while buying Ark a new bottle.” The walls slowly close in on me when he says, “That would be the right thing to do in a situation where someone’s shampoo was stolen.”
“It would be,” I agree, nodding. “But that isn’t m-my bottle.”
He watches me for several heart-whacking seconds before he says, “All right. If you insist.” He twists to face the exit. “I better leave you to it. You said you have a full schedule, and who am I to question your word?”
I let out the breath I’m holding in, confident the screams of my lungs demanding air will stop me from nibbling on the bait he’s dangling in front of me.
I’m not strong enough to withstand the flames of hell.
“It’s my bottle. I-I think.” My last two words are nowhere near as confident as my first three. “It went missing from my apartment the afternoon Ark drove m-me home.”
I can’t see Rafael’s face, but I can feel his smile.
The heat of covetousness is as hot as the inferno I was endeavoring to sidestep by being honest.
Not speaking another word, Rafael exits the bathroom, leaving me dumbfounded.
Again, I’d love a few minutes to deliberate, but that option is even more out of my reach now. I accused an owner of stealing. Things can’t get direr on the job front for me.
After rolling up my sleeves and breathing out a handful of butterflies my stomach hasn’t been without for the past week, I get to work.
I first strip Ark’s bed and gather the high-thread linen into a bundle before placing it into my cart. Time moves fast since I’m bobbing along to the tracks Tillie added to my playlists yesterday afternoon, instead of contemplating my many erroneous mistakes.
Tillie was in that stage of sickness where she was no longer contagious but not quite herself enough to go to school. While we did a jigsaw puzzle, she doubled my assurance that her birthday party was the best party she’d ever attended.
She doesn’t have much to go off. My shameful theatrics in my apartment Monday afternoon prove when your trust is low, you palm the neurosis onto more than your children.
I’ve declined every invite Tillie has received in the past five years.
The pure bliss on her face when she recalled how loudly her friends sang “Happy Birthday” has me hopeful I can loosen the reins enough that she will have both a safe and happy childhood.
A smile plays at my lips when I recall another part of our conversation yesterday. We made it halfway through the puzzle before Tillie queried about the weird smell that hadn’t left the kitchen in days.
I tried to make out I had burned the pot making hot cocoa the night she was sick, but Tillie knows me better than that. She immediately saw through my bluff before unashamedly declaring she knew Ark was the perfect match for me.
She only stopped teasing me when I reminded her that I hadn’t yet cleaned her vomit out of my work bag, and if she had enough energy to rile me, perhaps she had enough to help clean up the mess she made.
Her focus never veered from her Nintendo Switch for the rest of the day.
As I move through the motions of a thorough yet hurried clean, I think about the owner of this apartment and how he would never have to save for two years to buy a console that’s discarded the instant the latest model comes out.
Most residents of the Chrysler building are either wealthy businessmen or part of the healthcare conglomerate. One of Russia’s leading private hospitals is only half a mile away, meaning the serviced apartments attract world-renowned surgeons and their patients.
My fingers tighten around the corner of the sheets firmly when my thoughts stray to Ark for the umpteenth time today. He couldn’t be sick, surely. Excluding the time my nails dug into his shoulders, clamminess never dulled his natural olive skin coloring. His eyes are bright and without pain, and he is physically fit—extremely fit.