Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
It would be beneath me to beg her for sex.
So instead, I turned that anger toward something else that pissed me the fuck off.
“Why the fuck is such a talented woman like you playing on such a tiny, nothing stage?”
Adrenaline still rushed through my veins. Blood still pulsed through my cock. So my words came out like sharp daggers thrown at a wall.
With a sniff, she pushed her dress hem down and swung her feet to the floor. Pushing her tangled hair away from her face, she raised her chin. “Because that’s where the charity was being held. And I don’t need you judging me.”
My arms swung out to my sides as I gave her a condescending bow. “My apologies, your majesty, for speaking out of turn.” I placed a hand over my heart. “I’ll remember my place next time.”
Her fingertips swiped under her eyes as she straightened her shoulders. I could practically feel the icy wall she was erecting around herself. The lust drained from her beautiful brown eyes. They went from heavy-lidded and pupils blown wide to cold and distant. “Please, don’t put words in my mouth.”
My lips twisted in a sneer as I rounded on her. Placing my hands on the back of the sofa, I caged her in. “It wasn’t words I wanted to put in your mouth.”
She gasped. “You’re disgusting.”
“And you’re a cock-teasing, stuck up bitch.”
Her arm struck out to slap me.
My fingers wrapped around her wrist before she made contact. “The first one’s free, the second one would cost you more than you’re willing to pay.”
She wrenched her arm away from my grasp. “Obviously, this entire thing was a mistake. I wouldn’t trust you to guard my shoes, let alone me!”
Fuck.
I was thinking with the wrong head and behaving like a fucking teenager by cruelly lashing out.
Rising to my full height, I crossed my arms over my chest. “And you should be playing for the New York Philharmonic. So I guess we’re both not living up to our potential.”
“Playing in the Philharmonic is not what is expected of me. I have a duty and an obligation to my family, and that comes before everything.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I’m responsible for helping maintain my family’s reputation. The press and public would be brutal if they learned I had taken a paid musician position away from a more deserving candidate. There are certain things that a Manwarring simply cannot do.”
“You’re wasting your talent,” I spit out, knowing she had a point but hating it all the same.
I expected her to cower, to look down at the floor, and she did for a moment, but then she looked back up with her jaw clenched.
“Doesn’t that make you a hypocrite?”
“Excuse me? What did you just fucking say to me?” I really was going to beat her ass bright red.
“Shouldn’t you be off protecting some small village or whatever the fuck it is you Marines do? Instead, of acting like a useless hired guard dog for my family? Because you are following orders, just like I am.”
“My skillset wasn’t useless when your sister got kidnapped.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Do you know why Olivia was kidnapped?”
“Do you?”
Her head tilted as her voice took on a condescending lilt. “My sister was kidnapped because Marksen thought my brother was trying to destroy his business, but now they’re married and everything is fine, so your skillset isn’t needed anymore.”
She had a right to know. But it wasn’t my place to tell her.
Lucian had made it very clear, he didn’t want Charlotte worried about the lingering dangers of the Irish Mob, and I had agreed with him. Even in my rage, I wouldn’t shatter her comfortable existence with shadowy terrors.
It was my job to keep those shadows away.
My job.
Fuck my life.
I’d done it again. I’d let my growing feelings for her cloud my focus.
From the jump, I had miscalculated everything.
First, I thought I could scare her into running to daddy to get me reassigned, only to get caught in my own trap the moment I kissed her.
After over a year of watching her from afar, enjoying her sweet beauty and the haunting stillness of her smile, I thought I had her figured out. I thought she was a pretty piece of pink cotton candy fluff.
I never saw her intelligence, her talent, her secret fire.
Until it was too late.
I was already trapped within her flames.
Now, when given the chance for freedom, I’d refused and argued with Lucian to stay on as her guard. Only to once again, have the decision proven disastrous.
“You’re still throwing away your talent,” I shot back.
Rising with the poise of a queen, she crossed to the door and turned to look at me over her shoulder. “So are you. But sometimes we don’t get to choose our own path. It’s chosen for us.” After swinging open the door, her tone was as cold as ice. “Sergeant Taylor, please take me home.”