Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
I try stepping closer.
Seriously, I can’t stand this, fighting with my sister when all I want to do is hug her and help her. I need to know what’s really behind that foggy look in her eyes. Then maybe I can pull her back from the brink before it’s too late.
Good thing there are no customers, or else we’d be the talk of the town for the next two weeks.
The Sanderson sisters bickering in broad daylight while their mother lies dying in her hospital bed.
Ha.
But before I can reach her, the door behind the counter to the back stock room pops open.
Oh, good, here comes the man of the hour, oozing out like a stack of slime.
Aleksander Arrendell.
Tall, lithe, his longish hair spilling down and framing a face so angelic it could only be part demon.
The man does not look human.
More like Lucifer’s nephew embodied in the flesh. A fallen angel who decided to make tortured Redhaven his personal playground.
He’s wearing a pair of designer jeans and an oversized linen blouse that probably costs more than my nursing degree. The blouse is half-buttoned and the wide lapels pulled back like he’s trying to flaunt the lipstick imprinted on his collar.
On his throat.
On his lips, still a little smeared around his wide, carnivorous mouth.
He’s showing off today—way too deliberately—almost like he’s marking his territory. He wants to be sure I know damn well what he and Ros were up to before I showed up.
“Did I hear my name? My ears were burning,” he growls in that mockingly cultured accent, swaggering around the counter to join us.
The possessive arm he slips around Ros’ waist makes me gag.
And he pulls her in close, stamping a possessive kiss on her shoulder.
“I hope you ladies aren’t bickering over little old me. There’s nothing more important than family, you know, and I’d hate to come between loving sisters.”
Prick.
His words are devoid of guilt. The words sound false, smarmy, sardonic.
The man drips grease from his pores.
I so don’t get what Ros sees in him.
Unless she’s just bewitched by the wealth and glamour, the usual Arrendell black magic.
I also wonder what the hell he sees in Ros. She’s from another world where money doesn’t grow on trees. No wealth, no connections, no way to help him be richer and more powerful.
And although she’s perfectly pretty, sure, this man has been with supermodels.
I looked him up to confirm the whole sordid history and found a trail of exes who look like mythic goddesses. Never any local girls until now.
It just doesn’t add up.
A terrible uncertainty churns in my belly, so many ominous unknowns with no easy answers and too many threats.
Too many ways to lose my sister if he sucks her into his family’s black void and sweeps her away from me forever.
I bare my teeth in a smile that feels more like a cat puffing up its tail.
“Aleksander.”
“Ophelia,” he greets me with a warmth that makes my skin crawl, velvety and inviting. Borderline flirty. And right in front of my sister, oh God. “Come now, I know we were never chums growing up, but surely you can spare a little hug for your future brother-in-law?”
No effing way.
And who the hell talks like an English aristocrat in twenty-first century North Carolina?
“Don’t mind her, Sandy,” Ros squeaks in this cutesy baby voice I’ve never heard her use in my life.
Sandy?
Holy crap.
All I can do is stare like a deer in the headlights while she gives Aleksander a sultry pout, reaching up to brush her thumb over his lower lip.
“Ophie’s just being weird and stuffy. I told you she wouldn’t approve—not unless she really knows you. She’s overprotective like that. Big sisters, go figure...”
“And didn’t I say I’ll do whatever it takes to win her over?” He lifts her hand and kisses it.
Yep.
I’m about to be sick.
Though Aleksander sure as hell isn’t winning any brownie points with me right now as he presses his mouth to Ros’ thumb, then parts his lips to catch it between his teeth, flicking his tongue over the tip while she giggles.
It’s like I’m not even here.
Except I am and they just don’t care.
I can’t decide what’s worse.
But when Aleksander stops doing—ugh, that—to my sister’s thumb, he turns another oily smirk on me.
“I do mean that sincerely, Ophelia. I know my family reputation makes this seem like an odd situation—”
“Like that’s the only reason,” I spit.
“—but I do want us all to be one big happy family,” he continues, undeterred. “Frankly, I’m dead set on marrying your sister and making her mine. I only hope you’ll come to accept that. Not tonight, certainly, but in time.”
Not in a million years.
It’s funny how he says it, too.
Making her his.
But he never said one word about actually loving her.
This time, when I bare my teeth at him, it’s deliberate. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t consider you family just yet.”