Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 293(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
She gave herself a little slap, thankful to have put the brakes on such thoughts before they could get even more dreadfully fanciful.
Acheron Simonides is a rich man, and therefore off limits!
Pippi took a deep breath.
Now, focus!
Recalling the CEO's last words, she gingerly bent down to take his iPhone from his pocket and felt like a thief as she used his finger to unlock the device. Wickham turned out to be the #1 on his speed dial, and it took only one ring before someone on the other end of the line answered.
" Mr. Wickham?"
"Who are you, and why do you have Mr. Simonides' phone?"
The voice was a menacing mix of low and heavy, and Pippi wondered if maybe she had ended up calling John Wick instead. Clearing her throat, she said, "I'm at his apartment. He's sick, but he told me to call you instead of - hello? Hello?"
Fifteen minutes later, and Wickham turned out to be a big, bad, bald man in his forties with the same aura as military veterans and ex-convicts. In other words, she thought absently, someone who wouldn't think twice about killing if the situation called for it.
Fortunately, the man turned out to be a lot nicer under his gruff and grizzly exterior, and upon making certain Pippi hadn't anything to do with his employer's condition, he had immediately turned into the soul of kindness.
He was a bit of the chatty type, too, or so Pippi mistakenly assumed, when Wickham revealed to her how "the boss" had picked up a virus after his secret trip to a remote location in Africa. Apparently, he was building a school there, one he didn't want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to know about.
If that were so, Pippi couldn't help wondering, then why let her know?
The answer to this was simple, although much time was to pass before she would learn of it. Wickham, as Pippi had correctly guessed, was very used to killing. A war veteran with a mercenary past, he had met Acheron Simonides while the latter was still in his teens and on the rise in Athens' little-known underworld of crime and violence. Wickham had always been good at reading people; it was what had saved his life countless times in Iraq, and later on it was what had convinced him to work for Simonides.
It was also the same reason, Wickham thought, he trusted Ms. Pippilotta Jones at first sight. He had a good feeling about her, and an even better feeling when he thought of the woman and his boss together.
It was close to nine by the time Pippi made it home, and the slight trembling of her fingers made Pippi realize belatedly that it had been hours since her last meal. In her panic over the CEO's condition, she had actually forgotten to have her dinner.
This revelation, shared with the rest of the family over the kitchen table, had everyone gasping with exaggerated surprise.
"But you always go to pieces when you do something out of schedule," Vik, born one year after Pippi, protested with feigned confusion. "To do something so unheard of...is it possible you might have fallen for your—-"
Pippi's eyebrows shot up in warning. "Bite your tongue, missy!"
The rather old-fashioned expression had everyone laughing. It was one of the family's long-standing jokes, with Pippi and her younger sisters having grown up listening to her great-aunts speak like extras rehearsing for a Downton Abbey episode. The conversation then took different turns after this, with the matter of the eldest Jones daughter once rescuing a billionaire in distress all but forgotten.
Or at least it was so in the Jones' home.
Two
BREAKFAST READING NORMALLY consisted of stock reports and feasibility studies, but today was different. Today, his enforced convalescence had come to an end - and he could finally make a decision about the mysterious Pippilotta Jones.
His gaze returned to the dossier before him, opened to his assistant's cover sheet for the girl's background report.
Age: 23
Address: Bougainvillea Street, Isla de Flores
Family: Father, unlisted; mother, single without any prior marriages and self-employed by managing family-owned bed and breakfast; siblings, 3 (all female, younger, single); three other maternal great-aunts residing in the same domicile
Education: Undergraduate (Business Administration), took a leave of absence in her second year at the University of Miami
Work History: A teller at Banco de IDF (19 y/o), hired by Simonides Inc. as administrative assistant (20 y/o) and later promoted to executive secretary in the marketing department (21 y/o)
Acheron flipped to the next page, which contained a full-length photo of the girl, taken for one of the company's newsletters. Pippi Longstocking in person, he mused. Perhaps her parents had foreseen their daughter's resemblance to the fictional character, hence her charming name?
She had an elfin face with the lightest smattering of freckles, clear blue eyes, and dimples. Her most arresting feature was her hair - gold under the sunlight, and red in the night. She was neither beautiful nor unattractive. Sensible-looking was the best way to describe her, and he couldn't remember such a type ever capturing his interest.