Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
“It is.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to say it. You aren’t responsible for any of this. He’s responsible for all of it. Everything happened because of his actions, not yours.” I hated watching this good man shoulder the crimes that he hadn’t committed. His heart was heavy from its weight in gold. His intentions were pure down to the bone.
“Whether that’s true or not, it doesn’t change anything. You’re still my problem.”
“Why?”
He stared at me across the table, relaxed in the chair with his fingers around the stem of his glass. He continued to wear that ruthless expression, the shield so thick that no amount of light could make it inside his dark vessel. That stagnant gaze was reserved for me, staring at me exactly the way he stared at the artwork in the gallery, like there wasn’t enough time in the world to absorb its meaning. “Because I care for you deeply, sweetheart.”
One of his guys drove me to work.
My key still worked because the owner had been too busy to change the locks. I turned off the alarm like I did every morning, made a coffee in the break room, and then sat behind my computer to answer the emails and see if there were any appointments for the day.
But I froze as I stared at the screen.
This place used to be an oasis for me, the only safe place I had, surrounded by artwork that some artists made in their darkest moments. It’d only been a week since I’d been freed, but I already felt like a completely different person.
I took a moment to smell the roses. At least, the roses in the paintings.
A couple clients came in because a few new pieces had arrived, pieces that commanded exorbitant prices because of their age and artists. Most of the time, the quickest client got the painting for the sticker price, but if it was a special piece, it turned into an auction. Sometimes, there would only be three bidders, but none of them wanted to lose the auction, so they threw bigger and bigger numbers onto the table. It wasn’t even about the painting most of the time, but their egos.
With pieces like these, that might happen today.
When I finished with my appointments, I realized the time, that I worked through lunch and didn’t notice until my stomach growled. My appetite had come alive in the last week, and I actually enjoyed food again. The clothes that the butler had brought me probably wouldn’t last long, not when I returned to my old eating patterns. Not that I cared, but I hoped he would donate the clothes rather than toss them.
I was just about to leave for lunch when the hottest hunk in the world walked inside. We were just a few weeks away from the first day of spring, so there was more sunshine than we’d had before, less rain. He was in just a t-shirt and jeans, but that was also what he wore in a downpour, so it wasn’t a big change there.
He had a bag of takeout with him, and he carried it toward my desk.
I was glued to my chair, a thrill down my back at the sight of him. The dark ink on his skin matched the color of his eyes. Matched the color of his hair. The man was fucking gorgeous, and there was no way he didn’t know that. Didn’t know that every woman who looked at him wanted to jump his goddamn bones.
He set the bag on my desk. “The guys said you haven’t eaten.”
It took me a second to speak, overwhelmed by the way he looked in the sunlight, like a vampire who’d finally come out of the darkness. “It’s been a busy day…had a couple appointments.”
“Can I join you?”
I always wanted him to join me. “Always.”
We walked to the gallery floor and sat in the armchairs, the same place where we’d had one of our most intense conversations. This beautiful man had asked me to be with him, and I’d chosen my husband.
A husband I wished were dead.
The lunch was two sandwiches from Pino’s. I was hungry a second ago, but whenever he was in the room with me, I was too nervous to feel anything else. All I could think about was the searing heat of his skin. The way his muscles felt against my palm. The way he smelled…like a forest after a light rain.
He held his sandwich in one hand and took a bite.
“Second lunch?” I teased.
A smile moved into his eyes as he chewed.
“This is my first breakfast.”
I took a bite of the turkey sandwich and felt my hunger return when I tasted the fresh bread and all the flavors inside. “Fuck, this is good.”
“Axel told me about this place. Scarlett goes there with her father.”