Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“You didn’t mean for Claire to be taken.”
“What I did was fucked up, nonetheless.”
“They told you they wouldn’t hurt Beatrice—”
“And I was foolish for believing that.”
“How is she now?” I asked.
Bartholomew stared. And stared.
I must have said the wrong thing.
“Gone. She abandoned Claire and moved to London.”
“Why?”
“She never wanted to be a mother. She’d wanted an abortion, but Benton asked her to keep it. She was tortured at the camp, and her mind broke once she came home. She was definitely unsuitable for motherhood then.”
What a sad story. What a terrible thing for Claire to go through.
“Maybe that outcome was inevitable—but I sure moved things along.”
My arms crossed over my chest, thinking about my own mother, how much she loved me, how she never wanted to leave me.
He looked away and let the silence go by.
Despite the horror of his tale, it didn’t change my opinion of him. “I don’t want you to leave.”
His eyes slowly came back to me.
“I hope things work out with Benton.”
“If you were the one stuck in that cult, I think you would feel differently.”
“Maybe. But I’m here now—and I can see how sorry you are.”
“No amount of remorse will be equivalent to the injury I caused. If I were Benton, I would do more than shoot me. He’s already shown me mercy I haven’t earned.”
“Because he loves you.”
He wore a cold look.
“Because he knows you just miss him.”
“We aren’t pussies, so don’t talk about us like we are.”
“There’s nothing wrong with loving your friend and him loving you back.”
His visage remained cold, like my descriptions of their relationship were truly annoying him.
I dropped it. “I’m sorry you had a bad night, but make no mistake, if you talk to me like that again, I’ll be the one to hang up on you.”
He watched me, his intelligent eyes glued to mine.
“And we’ll be done.”
Now his coldness disappeared, and a glimmer of affection sparkled in his eyes. He preferred my hardness to my softness, seemed to enjoy it when I put him in his place. “Understood.”
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I felt him move.
My eyes opened to see Bartholomew sliding from the bed, doing his best to leave without waking me up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I grabbed his chiseled forearm, feeling all the cords of his tight skin. I tugged him back to bed, wanting that heat to warm my sheets again.
He came back to me, the corner of his mouth slightly raised in a smile.
I hugged him to me, the two of us sharing a single pillow, my leg hiked up over his hip. My fingers immediately dug into his thick hair.
“I have to go, sweetheart. But I’ll wait for you to fall asleep again.”
“Go where?” I asked, missing our time in Florence when he was beside me every night, when I woke up to his body next to mine. He wasn’t a vampire, just a man beside his woman.
He stared at me with those dark eyes, thinking an answer wasn’t necessary.
“You’re the boss. Can’t you just not show up?”
“I could, but I already took a hiatus longer than I should have when we went to Florence. There’s a lot of shit that needs my attention, and I’m the only one who can get things done.”
“I miss sleeping with you.” It was like our fight had never happened. I was immediately attached and clingy, something I’d never been before. There was always this distance between us, a constant reminder that this was a clandestine affair that would be snuffed out like a breeze to a lit candle. He was a lover to pass the time, a man who would be replaced by my future husband. He would be a memory, a good time, a story to share with my girlfriends.
“Become a vampire and you can sleep with me all you want.”
“I don’t think my clients would be too happy about that.”
He rolled me onto my back and settled on top of me, his thighs separating mine as he positioned himself to enter me.
“I thought you were leaving…”
He guided himself inside and sank, his big dick entering my soreness. “Don’t beg a man to stay unless you’re looking to get fucked again.”
I arrived at the apartment with the clothes on hangers, protected in a plastic bag. The staff let me inside, and I made my way upstairs to put everything in Hayes’s closet. It was a suit for a charity dinner he had, as well as a couple collared shirts for his more casual events.
I helped myself to his closet, hanging everything in the open section inside. When I walked out, he stood in the center of his bedroom, wearing sweatpants low on his hips with a black t-shirt on top.
I’d seen him shirtless a couple times, and it was a delicious sight. But now I didn’t feel anything—because Bartholomew was a million times sexier. “Good morning, Hayes. I hung up your things in the closet. You’re gonna look great tomorrow night.”