Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 58747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“Lady, you gotta give me a destination or we’re just gonna keep driving in circles. I mean, I’m on a meter so it’s fine with me but—”
“New Olympus city. Belladonna research labs.” I sit up straighter. If I go to Dad first, I won’t get a straight answer. No matter how much I’ve done for the company, he still sees me as his little girl. I need to find out the truth, no matter how much it hurts.
Three hours later, I step out of a ride share at my father’s townhouse, clutching a stack of papers to my chest. I spent the last few hours scouring my Dad’s offices at Belladonna, hoping against hope that I’d find evidence to refute what the Beast who stole me claimed this morning.
Instead… I swallow hard against the lump in my throat. No, don’t even think it. Dad will be able to explain. He’ll tell me how this is all some misunderstanding. A mistake in paperwork that the Beast is exploiting somehow. Making it out to be something it’s not.
Dad wouldn’t…couldn’t betray everything we’ve worked for like this.
Dad’s nurse Gemma opens the door and a smile lights her face. “Oh Daphne darling, your daddy will be so happy to see you. I know he wants to hear all about how the ball went last night. And that handsome fella Adam Archer. Rumor has it the two of you are getting hot and heavy.”
What? The ball feels about a million years ago but I smooth my expression and put on what I hope is a polite smile. “Is my father awake? I really need to talk to him.”
“Aw honey, what’s wrong? You look like you had yourself a piece of porcupine pie for breakfast.”
Gemma’s almost as old as Dad and has been working as a nurse for decades. Usually I like her spunky colloquialisms and interest in all the town gossip, but not today. I’m on a mission.
“Sorry, Gem, I really need to see Dad.”
She frowns but steps back from the door to let me through. “Okay, baby, come on in. He just woke up from a nap and I know seeing you will brighten his day.”
Ha, I think. Not likely.
I pass the living room and the bay window where someone, probably Gemma, has propped a painting of Thornhill’s gardens. The view is exactly what I used to see when I looked out the window of my mother’s home.
Mom and I used to curl up with pillows and blankets and read fairytales when it was raining outside. Everything always seemed extra magical when it was raining, like wizards and fairy godmothers were more likely to pop out of the woods when mist covered the earth after a good rainstorm. My chest aches the way it always does when I think of Mom.
When we lost her, I had no one to talk to. Dad was so lost in grief, and the only person I ever could really talk to about her left not long after she died.
Gods, I haven’t thought about Logan in such a long time. He and Adam were my dad’s research assistants back in the day.
Adam always seemed…unreachable, unattainable. He was surrounded by co-eds, the golden boy everyone wanted a piece of. But Logan was quiet, studious. He went to college on scholarship and was devoted to his studies. A lot like me.
So we’d study together and during late night study sessions and sometimes in the lab, we’d get to talking. I was only nineteen and he was twenty-eight but science is a universal language. And he knew about Mom and everything we were trying to do to save her.
I wish I could talk to him now. He’d know how to make sense out of this. Dad always treated me like a little kid but Logan treated me like an equal. I was hurt when he suddenly left without saying goodbye, but apparently he got a really good post doc across the country and had to leave right away.
People leave and let you down. Seems like a lesson I should have learned a lot earlier than now but I guess I’ve been stubborn to the end. I turn away from the bay window and push up the stairs. I’m not a child anymore.
Finally I’m at Dad’s door and I pause. My heart is racing. Gods, what am I doing here? Because in spite of the many times people have disappointed me in my life, Dad never has. And there could be other explanations…right? I mean, okay, there are some unexplained blanks in the accounting records. But Dad was never good with that kind of stuff.
He’s a lab guy like me. He might be just as clueless about all this. Yes, I know he’s the CEO, but that doesn’t mean someone didn’t take advantage of an old man… I should’ve taken a closer interest in the company as a whole long before his stroke. Gods, how could I have just let him shoulder the entire burden? What kind of daughter does that?