Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I turn to find Ezekiel watching me and the look in his eyes is not what I expect. Not at all. I hold the phone out. “She’ll text me back. And then I can give her the answer.”
He nods once, pockets the phone and it’s like all that aggression, all that hate, has gone out of him and we’re both just standing there, two hollowed-out husks that maybe were once human beings.
“I’ll keep an eye on it,” he says, then pauses and for a minute, I think he’s going to say something more and I’m not sure what I want but then he changes his mind and turns and leaves.
I exhale and suck in a ragged breath. I switch on the shower and stand under the flow, and I sob.
10
Ezekiel
That did not go as planned.
The lock on the bathroom door clicks behind me. I would expect no less. I hear the shower switch on as I walk out of the bedroom, one of the spare rooms in Carlton Bishop’s massive house, and lock the door behind me. She doesn’t run after me calling out or banging on the door, demanding release, but I don’t expect that. Not after that exchange. She’s in there licking her wounds. It’s what I wanted. To make her heel. And I achieved my goal. I need to keep her under control. What I didn’t expect was to lose control. Which I did.
I stop in the hallway and force a deep breath in.
She was right. I do like looking at her. I can’t quite put my finger on why. She’s attractive, yes, but so are many other women. Women I have easy access to. Women I can do what I please with and walk away from. The Cat House alone is full of them. So, what the fuck is my problem? Why did I let her get to me?
I need to keep my head on straight. Blue has evidence that can destroy me and my brother in the process. What just happened needed to happen. She needs to understand that she cannot cross a man like me. I’m doing the only thing I can do.
Guilt gnaws at me as I force myself to continue down the hall. Her sister is mentally damaged. I don’t like the idea of using her. It doesn’t feel right.
When I get downstairs, Dex walks in the front door carrying a suitcase.
“Ezekiel,” he says in greeting. “Morning.”
“Morning,” I say. It’s not that I dislike Dex. I don’t feel either way about him. He is my brother’s trusted right-hand man. If I’m honest, I may be a little jealous of that as idiotic as it sounds.
“All good here?” he asks, handing me the keys to the Range Rover. It’s my car and I’ve kept it at the house while I’ve been in Amsterdam.
“All good.” I hand him the key to Blue’s bedroom. “That’s from Isabelle?” I gesture to the suitcase.
He nods. “Everything you asked for.” I asked Jericho to send some of Isabelle’s clothes for Blue. They’re about the same size.
“And then some,” I say, having expected a few things. “Put them in her room, will you? She’s having a shower.”
Dex nods. “Jericho’s sending Cynthia over too.” Cynthia worked as part of the household staff while Jericho was away. “She’ll be here soon.”
“Good.” I walk into the kitchen where I find Blue’s purse on the counter. I’d already emptied out its contents but found nothing interesting. I pick up the ring of keys.
“Thanks. I’m heading to the apartment. I’ll be back in a couple hours.” I walk out the door and into the SUV. I’ve missed it. I’ve missed a lot of things these last few years.
Once Jericho and Isabelle’s relationship shifted and the Bishop threat was removed, it was time for me to leave the St. James house, my childhood home, that I’d been living in all those years Jericho was hiding Angelique. Strangely, although leaving numbed some of the pain of the past, being away also has forced me to focus on it from a different angle.
The thing with Zoë, what happened with her, to her, what she did when she could no longer cope, all that pain is still there, has been all along. Somehow, I was able to mask it throughout those years. Maybe it was my mother’s illness, maybe it was my brother and his secrecy around his daughter’s existence. Maybe it was keeping up appearances, who the fuck knows? There was enough to occupy my mind that I could bury my own shit.
That all changed when Isabelle moved into the house and maybe it had to do with my brother finding happiness. Maybe it was that that pushed me out because all of a sudden, all those things I’d buried deep were right there, confronting me at every fucking turn of every fucking corner. Zoë’s face. Memories of her the last years of her life. Not during the happy times, though. I seem to only remember the bad. The sad. Guilt, maybe, remembering her wasting away before my eyes and me just fucking missing it.