Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 124140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124140 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“Okay,” she whispered.
“I need to know exactly what Vince did or said. Did he mention me at all?”
“Mention you? Why would he mention you? Unless . . . you think he did this because of you? But why? I’m not anything to you. Attacking me wouldn’t harm you.”
Wouldn’t it? Had Vince seen something in the way he’d looked at her? Was that why he’d targeted her?
If so, Alejandro might need to do damage control. Because Vince hadn’t been the only asshole in that room. And some of the others were much smarter than him.
“No. He didn’t mention you. I was checking my phone in the employee room and when I turned around, he was there. He . . . he started to say things about how he wanted to fuck me. When I tried to scream, he put his hand over my mouth. Then he picked me up and walked me out the door to the alley. I managed to smash my head against his and he let go of me briefly, but I didn’t get more than a few feet before his henchman caught hold of me.”
She shook her head, then, as though trying to escape the memory. He could feel his fury growing, burning inside him.
Wanting a way free.
Soon. Soon, he’d expel all this murderous rage where it should go.
“Vince grabbed me, gagged me, and pressed me up against the wall. And started touching me. I don’t . . . I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You came soon after. I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”
“Shh, it’s all right. You don’t have to say anything else.”
“Thank you for rescuing me.”
Fuck. She just kept worming her way further under his skin. He had to get out of here soon before he did something truly foolish.
Like, tell her that she was never leaving him.
“Do you want me to run you a bath? Or do you want to have a shower?”
“Maybe a bath. Thanks.”
Alejandro set her down on the bed and it took everything she had not to reach for him. To beg him to stay with her. To keep touching her.
This was unsettling to say the least.
She shouldn’t want his touch.
Should she ask him to get her stuff for her? Snuggly and Roger? Her phone?
Maybe. But not tonight. Besides, the others wouldn’t expect her to text until tomorrow night. So they wouldn’t be worried just yet.
She glanced around the room. It was the most luxurious place she’d ever stayed in. The room was enormous. There was an open fireplace with two armchairs set in front of it. She didn’t know if the fireplace was just decorative, but she could see herself curled up in one of the armchairs, reading a book.
The bed was enormous and had a deep blue velvet coverlet on it. The headboard was a white wrought iron. Elegant. Beautiful.
Above them was a gold chandelier.
There was even an attached bathroom. It was almost too much and so far removed from the shitty hole she lived in.
She didn’t belong here. Which is why she shouldn’t get comfortable. Tonight, once Alejandro left, she’d have to go looking for any information that she could find.
Then she’d have to get far away from here.
Alejandro moved into the doorway and stared down at her. “Come, Pequeña. Your bath is ready.”
This was kind of surreal.
Alejandro De Leon, the king of New York. The man who ran the biggest criminal syndicate in the country had run her a bath.
A giggle threatened to escape, and she barely managed to hold it back.
Now was not the time for her to lose her mind.
“Come.” He crooked a finger at her.
No way. She was not going to just come to him like a dog. She was going to sit right here on the bed and . . .
“Oh drat,” she muttered as she stared down at her feet as they moved her toward him. “They have a mind of their own.”
She glanced up to find him smirking down at her. “Are you sure you’re not a magician?”
“I’m not a magician. Your body knows that when the boss speaks, it obeys.”
Dear Lord.
“I bet you spend a fortune at the chiropractors,” she muttered.
“What?”
“Getting the cricks out of your neck. You know, because it has to carry around that giant head of yours.”
“Hmm, it’s not the only giant head I have.”
Wait, what . . . he hadn’t just said that, had he?
Suddenly, he stepped back, his face growing expressionless. “Go have your bath. I’ll find you something to wear to bed.”
And then he was gone. And she was alone.
Oh, Cat didn’t like this. At all.
Being on her own in a strange place . . . without Snuggly and Roger.
No. Nope.
She wanted Alejandro to come back. She felt safe with him around.
“You can’t afford to think of him as the good guy,” she muttered to herself.