Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The sneer on his face makes my heart riot against my ribs. My lungs are struggling, and my head feels light, as if there are bubbles floating in there. Gently, I place my hands on his forearm and feel the corded muscles as they tense at my touch.
“Yes,” I rasp. “I-I wouldn’t lie.”
“Oh?” He smirks, and I realise I kind of did. I omitted information. It isn’t the same as lying. “You are a liar.” His sneer is venomous.
I shouldn’t be saddened by his anger at me, but for some reason, I am. The kiss we shared was nothing more than me thanking him for his help, but deep down, I know it was more. I felt it. There was a current of need that had coursed through me the moment my lips touched his cheek. The short stubble tickling my lips, and last night in bed, I replayed the moment in my head, over and over again. The memory of his tongue tasting my lips sent me over the edge.
There’s a long, silent moment where he just stares at me. I dart my tongue out to lick my lips, and those dark orbs drop to my mouth. Heat flickers in his stare. Then the hand he’d been holding me with snakes around to my hair, and he fists the locks before tugging my head back. My neck exposed, Monster leans in and slowly inhales, as if he’s committing my scent to memory.
“You’re a distraction,” he tells me. The words slam into me. I should have been upfront, but I obeyed Father Donahue when he told me to hide the truth. Even though I knew it was wrong, I did it. Whatever happens to me now is in fate’s hands. “I don’t trust you.”
Monster lifts his head from the crook of my neck. His dark eyes simmer. I’m pretty sure he wants to kill me. Perhaps he should, and then this will all be over. Finally.
“Then kill me,” I mutter when he only stares at me. “I lied to you, that’s true. But I was scared. The truth is, I didn’t know who my father was until I was kidnapped by him.”
I don’t lower my gaze; instead, I hold his hostage because I know if I were to look away, he’d think I was lying. He needs to see the truth in my eyes.
“Why would a father kidnap his daughter?” Monster asks me, his brows furrowed in confusion.
Even though we’re having what I would consider a conversation, he doesn’t release his hold on me. And I don’t want him to. The realisation that I crave this, I crave him, makes my stomach tumble. I have a crush on the man who wants to hurt me and my family.
“Before I was taken, I overheard my mother talking on the phone,” I start, recalling what happened that night. “She told whoever it was, Patrick I assume now, that she won’t allow me to see him or visit him. I went up to my room, and when I came down for dinner, she was gone. I was in her office when I found a folder in one of her drawers,” I speak, hoping he’ll let up, and slowly, ever so fucking slowly, his fingers release my hair.
“What was in the folder?”
“Information about Patrick Bragan and the paternity test confirming my lineage.” The memory of what I’d learned is burned into my brain. I can never forget where I come from. A long line of dangerous people.
“And then what?”
“There was someone in my mother’s office, and he knocked me out with a cloth wet with chloroform.” A shudder wracks through me when I close my eyes and remember that smell. “When I woke, I was in Bragan’s house.”
“So ye woke up in his house. He kept you there all that time?” Monster asks me before stepping back.
I’m thankful for the reprieve of his anger, but also, I miss him being close. The man is a danger to me, but not to my life. No, the man before me is a danger to my heart. Because when he looks at me, I can tell he’s at war with himself. His words, you’re a distraction, ring in my ears.
“Yes,” I tell him. “Patrick questioned me about my mother, her business, and her whereabouts. But I don’t know anything. All my life she’s always told me she’s in banking, and I believed her because I didn’t think she had a reason to lie.”
He watches me. He doesn’t move, and it’s almost as if he’s not breathing either. The air in the room sparks with volatile energy. I want to run, but I also want to force him to listen and believe me. I don’t know why it means so much to me for him to understand, but it does. The man has given me a home when he didn’t have to. He’s given me a job, something to keep me from having to leave the club. Which also means safety. I’m safe from my father’s men, and it seems my mother as well.