Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“Ah.” Pause. “Mr. Cruz, you’re aware there’s an arrest warrant out in your name.”
“I’m aware. How long?”
“I expect they’ll move him late morning, tomorrow,” he tells me hesitantly.
“And which room is he in?” I hear him take a deep breath in. “Listen, Higgins, I have something he’s going to want to see sooner rather than later. What is his room number?”
“Give me a minute. I’ll call you back.” He disconnects the call.
I walk across the room to one of the richly draped windows at the front of the house and gaze out onto the quiet night. The road isn’t visible from here. It’s secluded and completely private. I chose this place because I can’t go home. The police will be waiting for me there. It’s a matter of time before I’m arrested, but I need to take care of a few things before that happens.
The phone rings and I answer.
“Room 414. They won’t allow visitors, but Horatio has a feeling you’ll find a way.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Higgins.”
I tuck the phone into my pocket and tell Hamish to have the car ready as I make my way up to the bedroom Ophelia had disappeared into. The lights on the nightstands cast a dim glow over the room, which is large, the design a little over the top for my liking, but it’s tastefully done. I set my mother’s jewelry box on the table, taking out what I need. I then draw the curtains closed and strip off my jacket, draping it over the back of a chair. The light in the bathroom is on. I can see the strip of it under the door. So, I take a seat on the chair that is more comfortable than I expect and wait for my wife.
It's another ten minutes before I hear the bath drain. I straighten as the door opens and Ophelia steps out of the bathroom, a thick towel wrapped around herself. She doesn’t see me at first, and I can watch her. Her pale skin is pink from a hot bath, her hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. Does she have a clue how beautiful she is? What a fool Ethan Fox is for not seeing it.
I switch on the light and hear her gasp. I meant what I said at the chapel. I married her for love, and this is very real.
It’s time she understood that.
9
OPHELIA
Igasp when a light switches on in the far corner, illuminating Silas sitting in the armchair watching me.
“Jesus!” I clutch the towel tighter around myself as he stands.
“Didn’t mean to startle you.” He comes toward me.
“No? Is that why you’re sitting here in the near dark like some creep? Get out.”
He smiles, studying me and, just like every other time he so much as looks at me, I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I want to say it’s unease, but it’s not. It’s a fluttering of anticipation. A near electric alertness. Something my body does only for him, has only ever done for him.
“No.” He brushes a lock of hair that’s fallen out of my hurried up-do over my shoulder.
“I counted six doors up here. Choose a room that’s not mine.”
“Yours?” he asks, an eyebrow rising, a smile playing along his lips.
“Mine,” I say, standing taller on my bare feet, refusing to back away even though it will be better for me if I do because even as my mind forbids it, my body remembers the last time Silas touched me. How it felt. How he felt.
And then there’s what he said at the chapel. That one word.
Love.
No. No, that was just to get me to go along with the plan. Although I would have anyway. As soon as he told me what happened to my father, I would have done whatever I needed to do to get to him.
“I have something for you,” he says. I feel his fingers against mine. He holds my hand between us. I keep my right hand firmly on the knot holding the towel in place. “It should have been my mother’s, but she never did marry,” he starts, his voice drifting.
I know I hit my head hard in the car crash, but I’m struggling to process what he’s doing, what is happening. I stand mute, staring as he slides what is probably the prettiest ring I have ever seen onto my finger.
“It’s yours now,” he finishes.
I shift my gaze up to his and realize I missed whatever he said between those two bracketing statements. Confused, I study the ring on my finger. I’ve seen it before. Esmerelda had shown it to me a long time ago, telling me it would be for Silas’s wife one day. In fact, I’d even tried it on. I remember very clearly how fifteen-year-old me had daydreamed it might be mine because I would be Silas’s wife.