Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 352(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
The guys get up and start helping. I watch, transfixed. Kellen’s moving into the manor house and bringing what looks like an entire apartment’s worth of stuff into one of the suites upstairs. The guys helping him must be his friends, because they’re all laughing and joking.
I shake my head and hurry away. Why the hell is Kellen moving back into the manor now? I know his father’s dead, but he’s been away a long time. Hugh’s taken over in the intervening years and I can’t imagine that snake letting Kellen muscle into his territory, regardless of whether Kellen is the first-born son of Orin or not.
I drop my letter off and hurry back to my cottage. I should get working soon—some of the bushes need pruning and I have some flowers I want to plant in the side bed—but before I get a chance, I spot two figures coming down the path toward me.
It’s Kellen and one of the guys from the van. The stranger is tall, muscular, and covered in tattoos just like Kellen. But his hair is a rusty, dark, coppery red, and his eyes are a deep blue. His nose is small and straight and his smile is tense, almost like he’s forcing it. Where Kellen is relaxed and flows, this man seems wound up.
I look around wildly. My place is cozy by my standards—but it’s also a cluttered wreck according to basically everyone that’s ever seen it, which isn’t very many people to be fair, but still. I learned a while back that my standard of neatness doesn’t exactly jive with the average human, and so I don’t let many people into my house.
Instead of letting him knock, I grab my hat, shove it over my head, snatch my work gloves from the peg by the door, and step outside into the heat.
Kellen and his friend stop. I look up, feigning surprise, and based on the smirk Kellen gives me, I don’t think they buy my performance.
“Good morning,” Kellen says. “Heading to work?” His smile gets slightly larger and a jolt of anger runs down my spine. I remember the day before, his fingers digging into my wrist, his rage burning so brightly it almost hurt, and I glance down at the ground. That smile is hiding his real feelings toward me, but I saw the monster lurking inside.
Typical Hayle. Pretty on the exterior but poisoned beneath the skin.
“What do you want, Kellen?”
“Polite as always.” He gestures at his friend. “This is Finn, my business associate.” I look up at that. Finn’s giving me his tense grin.
“Nice to meet you,” Finn says quietly.
Business associate probably means fellow gangster but I don’t say that out loud.
I nod at Finn and cross my arms. “I’m busy,” I say, heading back to the shed. “Don’t have time to chat.”
Kellen follows and Finn lingers out front, looking in my front windows. I grimace slightly and want to tell him to cut it out, but I doubt he’d listen anyway.
“Why don’t you make a few minutes?”
I rummage around the shed, pretending to look for something, but really just trying to make him leave. “There are only so many hours in the morning before it gets too hot, and I have pruning to do.” I find my shears plus a bucket with a few small spades inside. “And I have a bunch of flowers to plant.”
“I’ll have the boys do that. You can have the morning off.”
I step out of the shed and glare at him. “Are you paying my salary now?”
“No, but—”
“No, you’re not, that would be Hugh. So please, I should go.”
“Tara, wait.”
I hesitate, even though I shouldn’t. He’s too close and I’m suddenly very aware of his size and the way he’s looking at me somewhere between desire and hatred, in a strange, liminal space where lust and rage are inexplicably intertwined, and I feel his fingers digging into my wrist again and the palpable wave of violence that rolls off him.
He could hurt me right now and nobody would stop him.
“What do you want?” I sound desperate, but I don’t care. I just need Kellen to go away and leave me alone.
He moves closer instead. “You’ve been living and working here since Cait died,” he says softly, staring at me intently. “Seven long years.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You know more about what’s going on with the family than I do. Hugh’s not the only player here. We both know what the Hayle family’s actually like.”
“I’m not getting involved.” I shoulder my pruning shears and I’m tempted to use them on him right now. “You’re asking me to be your informant.”
“I’m asking you to answer a few questions.”
“No, absolutely not, there’s no way I’m sticking my neck out and getting in the middle of this mess.” I shake my head and push past him. “No way in hell.”