Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
The doors burst open right on cue, and his eyes changed from cold peaks to burning lava. “Get. Your. Ass. Up.” He stood in front of me, his powerful arms hanging by his sides. “Now.”
I turned my eyes back to my book and kept reading. “No.”
His hand flew to my throat, and he tightened his grip, pushing my head back against the couch. He rested a knee on the cushion and leaned over me, the threat of violence clear in his eyes. “Move now, or I’ll slap you until you cry.” He shook my neck forcefully. “Don’t test me.”
I wasn’t testing him. I simply didn’t care. “Do your worse, Crow.” My body was unable to feel anything anyway. It was numb from the blow over Jacob and that ice would never thaw. I was hopeless, having nothing and no one to believe in. Whether I was there as his prisoner or back at home, I was still alone with no one to trust. He could hurt me all he wanted, but I probably wouldn’t feel anything anyway.
His fingers loosened on my neck and his expression changed. Something happened deep inside him. He saw a flicker in my eyes. He saw something break in my soul. He finally saw the aftermath of my heartbeat. It took some time, but he finally understood it.
He changed his tone, dropping the violent one and adopting the gentle caress I preferred. The caring and sympathetic man didn’t emerge often. But when he did, it was beautiful. “Please join me for dinner.” He pulled his hand away from my neck and brushed his fingers along my cheek.
The concern in his eyes brought some life back into my bones. The fact that I could sheathe his anger sometimes and bring out the gentle side of him gave me some form of importance. “Okay.”
***
We had dinner on the terrace that evening. The sun had set behind the hills, but the pastel color in the sky still lingered. A gentle breeze swayed through the vineyards and rustled the leaves of the vines. The olive trees positioned by the road darkened under the impending shadow of night.
White candles burned in the center of the table, illuminate our faces as we ate our dinner. Neither one of us spoke because we usually didn’t have much to say over dinner. Sometimes, I wondered why he wanted me to join him when he clearly didn’t care about having company.
“How was work?” I was the first one to break the silence.
“It was fine.” His answers were clipped, like always.
“What do you do there, exactly?” I knew he ran the winery, but I didn’t know what that entailed. Sometimes he worked at home, and sometimes he was gone all day.
“A lot of paperwork. A lot of overseeing.”
“You don’t pay someone to do that for you?”
“I do. But it’s important to make an appearance regularly. Keeps everyone in line. Keeps them honest.”
I remembered the way Bones shot one of his workers. The man had a seizure and couldn’t move, but that didn’t matter to Bones. He shot him in the head anyway. Without asking, I knew Crow didn’t treat his employees that way.
“I have distribution centers all over Italy, so I visit each of them randomly. When they don’t know I’m coming, they behave themselves. I could pop up at any moment.”
“It sounds like you don’t trust them.”
He swirled his wine before he took a drink. He licked his lips then returned the glass to the table. “I don’t trust anyone.”
He told me to do the same. And he was right. My own boyfriend sold me into a life of sexual servitude. I lived with the man, made love to him, and told him I loved him before I went to work in the morning. And then he stabbed me right in the back. “And you shouldn’t.” I would never make that mistake ever again. I would never let anyone into my heart. This journey showed me people were innately evil. They were never good like I once believed. I even met two women who understood I was a slave, and they didn’t give a damn about it.
Crow set down his fork even though he wasn’t finished eating. He usually had small servings that were gone when dinner was over. But tonight, he abandoned his plate, lacking an appetite. His gaze locked to mine, and he searched me deep and wide. Sometimes he could read my thoughts just by looking at me. “I’m disappointed in you.”
Somehow, that was worse than when he stormed into my room and told me to get over it. It was more painful. “Yes, I’m a human being with feelings and emotions just like everyone else. I can’t be a robot like you, purely mechanical.” I couldn’t get over something that devastating overnight. It would take me some time.