Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145729 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Joshua, do you need me? Migraines are the worst. My dad used to get them. My mother showed me how to massage his temples for him. It helped. I can come over after I’m done here. I told Molly I’d drop by her house before I left town because she wanted me to look at some odd wormhole or something like that she thinks is in her bedroom. She’s afraid her entire house is being eaten by woodworms. I can put that off.
He studied the text for a long time, happiness bursting through him. Right away. She’d change her plans to get to him right away. He hadn’t thought she would ever do that. Sonia seemed so elusive, except when they had sex. Every other time she was just out of reach.
I want to take you dancing. And out to dinner. I want to have a barbecue with you and your friends. I want to show you off, let everyone know you’re mine.
Again, he got that long pause, as if she was trying to figure out why he said those things to her. She didn’t know he had a file on the Bogomolovs or that she was in it. She didn’t know his investigators were digging up everything they could find on Sonia Lopez and her family.
Joshua, I’m coming over.
He needed a little time for his headache to ease before he saw her and told her everything. He would need all his wits about him to convince her to stay with him. He texted Gray to meet Kai in town and help watch over her. Then he turned his attention to Sonia.
No, babe, go to Molly’s and ease her mind. She doesn’t have it easy. She wouldn’t have asked if she didn’t need you. I just have a headache. I took meds and it will go away soon. We’ll have dinner tonight, my house. I’ll have a chef in. Or we can go to a restaurant if you prefer. Whatever you’d like.
You’ll have a chef in? Just like that?
And candles. You like candles. They’re all over your house. You never come here.
You know why. I’m working there.
Today you’ve been off work. I want the world to know you’re mine. We can start with Evan and the others.
Ha. Ha. Ha. I’m pretty sure they already know.
He liked that she didn’t object to him calling her his.
Go look at Molly’s wormhole and tell her it isn’t a wood-eating worm, even if it is. She’ll never stay home and she’ll want to come over to your house and if you won’t come here, I have to be there. I want you with me tonight. Got that?
Got it. You rest. I’ll see you tonight and you can tell me all about your meeting.
His meeting. With Nikita Bogomolov, the man who had tried to kill her. He closed his eyes, wondering how that was going to go over.
9
Molly’s house was on a quiet street, tucked back into a cul-de-sac edging the outskirts of town. The river and swamplands were just a scant half mile away in the distance, across a field from her backyard. The house was small, but the yards surrounding it were extensive and beautifully landscaped. She worked in them all the time.
Her front porch was large, like many of the verandahs in the neighborhood. She had a two-person covered swing and one egg-shaped basket chair that dangled on a chain from the ceiling. It was a woman’s home. First her grandmother and then Molly lived in it and the stamps of the two women were clear. The house was painted a soft, barely there green with lacy white trim around the windows. The cushions in the swing and egg basket chair were green-and-white striped.
“I sit here every single night,” Molly confided as she turned the key in the lock. “It’s my favorite thing to do.”
“I almost always sit on my back porch,” Sonia said. “It faces the swamp, and I love to listen to the frogs and swamp cicadas. It’s just so beautiful.”
“All I could think about if I owned your property was a big alligator sneaking up on me. Or biting insects.” Molly gave a delicate shudder. “Mosquitoes.”
“They don’t bother me,” Sonia admitted. “I think I give off some kind of chemical that repels them. I guess that’s why I don’t mind going out day or night in the swamp. I don’t have the bug problem a lot of other people do.”
“I wish I had that repellent.” Molly pushed open the door, hurried inside and punched in the code to disarm the alarm.
“It’s because you’re so sweet, Molly,” Sonia said. “Even insects know it.”
Molly burst out laughing. “That sounds like such a line. I would expect Bastien to say something like that.”
“He might, but like me, he’d mean it. You really are sweet. I don’t understand how your parents could throw you under the bus for money.”