Total pages in book: 54
Estimated words: 49114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 196(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49114 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 246(@200wpm)___ 196(@250wpm)___ 164(@300wpm)
Elaina
I clenched my fists so that I didn’t use my hands to rub the butterflies in my tummy. I was so nervous, the kind of nervousness that’s usually followed by the need for a restroom, but I was too embarrassed to ask where it was.
Embarrassed? I was too afraid to even speak. And it was all because of the tall broad shouldered man standing off to the side. He couldn’t have made it more obvious that he was separate from everyone else here if he’d carried a sign.
I don’t think he likes me very much but I guess I can’t blame him. I don’t imagine I’d feel any different if I were in his shoes. If my mother had been humiliated for months by his, I’d hate him too.
As if I wasn’t already hopping from one level of hell to the next, the feel of his hand against mine unsettled me and caused the air to become trapped in my lungs.
But it was the quick peek I’d taken when he first entered the room that had set my heart to racing even before his nearness broke me out in a cold sweat. I felt hot, cold and close to tears from one moment to the next.
What’s wrong with you Elaina? Get a grip. I had to call on all my training and survival instincts not to give myself away, but I couldn’t for the life of me understand what was happening.
This wasn’t anything like my usual unease when in Lisa’s presence, no, this was something else. Something much deeper and more profound than the confusing emotions that stem from my distorted relationship with the woman who birthed me.
If I were alone I would splash some water on my cheeks, or maybe stand in front of a very cool air conditioner to get some much needed relief from this heat that seemed to come from my very core.
But instead, I stood still and barely dared to blink in the room with the ceilings that had to be at least twenty feet high and covered in enough gold and crystal to make me almost too afraid to breathe let alone move.
I’m not at my most comfortable in such elegant surroundings having never been exposed to such as this before. Trust Lisa to drop me into the deep end my first time out. As you can imagine, I was feeling completely out of my depth.
So I definitely did not need the added drama of the tiger in the corner who looked ready to pounce at any given moment. And why did it seem that all that raw energy was suddenly focused on me?
I hadn’t felt it at first. I was too fidgety to grasp anything from the moment we drove up to the larger than life mansion. But now, after that handshake, I can’t help but notice… something. But what? We didn’t know each other.
In fact, this was our first time meeting, although our parents have been an item for a while now. Well a while in my mother’s crazy mixed up world anyway. Then again, anything longer than a week is considered a relationship for her.
I dared one last glance in his direction and regretted it. His eyes, that look, so focused, was directed at me. I looked away just as fast with burning cheeks, feeling like a ninny, and suddenly close to tears again.
I bit into my lip and tried to make sense of the warring emotions he’d awakened in me in just a few minutes. It’s true he’s gorgeous, but I’ve seen gorgeous men before and never felt the need to lose my senses over them.
In fact, due to my mother’s proclivities, I’ve grown rather wary of men, and especially the gorgeous ones. But had his appeal stopped there I may have been able to get myself out of this miry pit I seem to have found myself in.
But with him, Luke was it? Yeah, Luke Carstairs is no ordinary pretty boy. There was some kind of predatorial, animalistic element to him. It emanated from him so forcefully that you couldn’t help but notice even if you wanted to.
It came off of him now in waves, and those waves all seemed to be crashing into me. Over me, and finally, all around. I was in way over my head, and I had that sensation of swimming in the deep.
I felt and sensed danger, and of course my need for self-preservation kicked in. I mapped out the nearest escape route from where I stood to the closest exit and felt relatively more at ease.
I wondered if the room’s other occupants realized that he wasn’t talking? That his silence was even more deafening than words? Couldn’t they feel that energy? It was part menace, part allure.
A dangerous combination to be sure and devastating to my senses. That sickening feeling grew in the pit of my stomach and I fought not to rub myself, to give my unease away under his unwavering stare.