Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94686 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94686 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“I want to hear the long story.”
“Not tonight.” He checked his watch.
“Damn it. Why are you doing that? What is going on?”
“Nothing.”
I rolled my eyes, dragged myself out of bed, and stomped toward my slippers.
“Where are you going, tesoro?”
I didn’t waste my time answering him when he couldn’t even tell me the things I needed to know. Pulling my thin, silk robe over my body, I stormed out of the room, headed down the stairs, and took even less time moving through the kitchen and outside to the pool. The whole time, Chase silently walked behind me, closing doors when necessary and never really giving me more than a few feet of space. “Tesoro?”
“What does that mean?” I huffed.
“Open your legs and I’ll show you.”
I twisted around and pointed at him. “If you think you can hide things from me and then still see that space between my legs, then you’re severely delusional. I don’t do lies.”
“I never lied,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I would watch answering that so quickly. You’ve lied. You had to because you’re sure not telling me the truth.” A cool breeze brushed by and chilled my skin.
I gazed up at the sky. Stars glittered back. The moon glowed full in this golden light. It all would’ve been magical if not for the lies and secrets, swirling around me and the possibility of a demented psycho stalking me.
“Come here.”
“No.” I headed to the pool, unsure of where I was truly going.
The beach wasn’t such a big trek from here. There were these long stairs cut into the cliffs, so useful and enchanting all at the same time. However, I wasn’t sure how to get there and I had no idea if Chase’s men would even be down at the beach. And I had no idea where on the beach they would be digging. Bullcrap. This is all bullcrap. I paced back and forth. He watched. Concern etched on his face while his fingers did a dance of tapping on his thighs. He was in a fit of anxiety and looking like he was about to explode at the seams.
“Let’s go back to bed,” he suggested.
“No. If I go to sleep it will be in Vivian’s room. I want a ticket out of here tomorrow. If I’m going to be blind and deaf to what’s going on around me, I would rather do that in my own apartment.”
“I’m sorry but you don’t have that option.”
Anger rose within me so fast I was hot and ready to slap someone. “Come again?”
“Someone is trying to kill you.”
“I’m—”
“No. You don’t get to handle this on your own especially when this is my fault. You want to know details about the investigations? Fine. We’ll do it when whoever is doing this is captured and far away from you. Then we can spend the rest of our lives talking about everything.”
Yeah, right.
“Even what’s in those two locked rooms?”
It took him a while to respond. He combed through his hair with shaking fingers. “Why are you so fascinated with those rooms?”
“Because they’re locked and I’m nosy. Let’s not forget that you have binders of an entire woman’s life story, every woman you’ve been with, so you’re a bit nosy yourself.”
“That’s to protect me.”
“Well, I need to know this stuff to protect me.”
“I protect you.”
I walked off. “Goodnight. I’m going to sleep in Viv’s room.”
“There are other guest rooms.”
I kept on walking. His footsteps sounded behind me and then he seized my arm. “Stay in our room, it has the most cameras and—”
“No.”
He wouldn’t let go. “Tesoro.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “Until you tell me what it means, and don’t touch me”—I yanked my arm away—”until you tell me what’s going on.”
He reached for me and I stepped back. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“By letting me walk through this blind?”
“You don’t—”
“I’m smart. I could help and even if I can’t, it’s in my best interest to know. It calms me.” My own fingers began to shake. “And I’m scared!”
My bottom lip quivered. This icy chill crawled up my spine. The reality of the situation seeped deep into my bones. I’m scared to death. I’d been trying to push the shooting out of my head, just pretend like it didn’t happen, and go on happy about each day. But, I couldn’t, or at least I hadn’t. I’d never been shot before. That alone could freak a person out. Then the fact that some person out there in this world wanted me dead shoved me further over the edge. She was somewhere plotting, wondering how she could end my life.
Chase came to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Don’t be scared. I’m here.”
I knew it would hurt him, understood that it wouldn’t be fair to say it, but I did anyway. “You were with the other women too and now they’re all dead.”