Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
He stares at me for a long moment. Like he can’t tell if I’m serious.
I’m not even sure I’m serious.
Actually, that’s not true. I am serious. I would like to kill those worthless billionaires. So I lean into it. “I might never get a chance like this again. So… yeah. I’m in for that.”
His eyes drift past me. To something over my shoulder. Like he’s thinking things through. Then he meets my gaze again. “I’ll give you the night off, but tomorrow we’re back in training. We’ll pick up your stuff after our run.”
He’s really good at this deflection stuff. But I don’t really care if he bosses me around like he’s Maart. It’s not like what he’s asking is hard. It’s just training.
“Would you like to go to dinner?”
I point at myself. “You want to take me to dinner?”
“We should eat.”
“Is this…” I tilt my head at him. “Is this part of the kiss offer?”
“What kiss?”
I scoff at him.
“Oh.” He laughs. That smile, wow. It’s nice. And such a contradiction to the face he was just making moments ago. It changes everything about him. I wonder if he can feel that on the inside the way I can see it on the outside. “Shit, I forgot about that. Mmmm…” He doesn’t know what to say. “Whatever. If you want a kiss, I’ll kiss you.”
“Well, I don’t want to make you kiss me. But you offered, you know.”
“I did. But I was joking. I wasn’t serious.” I must make a face at him, because he backpedals. “But, yeah. Sure. Fine. We’ll go to dinner, have ourselves a little date, and I’ll kiss you goodnight. It’s much different than a kiss goodbye from your bestie.”
I nod at this. “OK. Practice boyfriend.”
“What?” He laughs his word out. And again, I am struck at just how handsome he is when he’s happy.
“That’s what you are. My practice boyfriend. So when the real thing comes along I’ll be ready. And this is my first date.”
He stares at me for a moment, his smile falling a little. “You’ve been on dates. I saw you that night with that guy, remember?”
“I didn’t agree to that. Nandy just… well, she’s always trying to set me up. But I’m…” I let out a breath because I don’t have a word ready.
“Scared?”
“No.” I say this with too much emphasis.
“I don’t get you, Irina. I really don’t understand your life. I mean, I know I wasn’t really a part of the camps the way you were, and there weren’t many girls in the camps I was in. Maybe half a dozen across all of them. But I do know for sure that none of them were virgins. How did you get this far, in this sick world you were born into, without…”
Without being raped? But he doesn’t say that. I just shrug. “Not pretty enough?”
“Pretty’s got nothing to do with it.”
I shake my head now. “Just lucky, I guess. Cort. And Maart. And Rainer.”
“But the boys in your camp? They didn’t…”
Now I actually laugh. “No. And not just because they would’ve been killed if they had touched me that way. They just… that’s just not how it was where I grew up. No one wanted to have sex with me, Eason. I was one of them.”
“A little sister.”
“Yeah. It was… a family. Sort of. Where your brothers and sisters just kinda disappeared every few months.”
He lets out a long breath, probably visualizing that last sentence with a little too much clarity. Then he nods. “OK.” Seemingly satisfied, he changes the subject. “You can pick the restaurant. Where should we go?”
Without thinking, I say, “LMR Eats.” But once it’s out, I realize it’s perfect. If he’s gonna be my practice boyfriend I might as well go all in.
CHAPTER 15
I don’t really care where we eat. I’m just trying to make the day end so I can go back to bed. I don’t know what I was thinking, but the whole prospect of using Irina to get revenge on Cort van Breda lifted my spirits. It gave me a goal. Something to hold on to.
I realize now that Wade and Davis—Davis mostly—encouraged this to keep me going. And it’s… embarrassing. That I’m so affected by the circumstances of my life. That it gets to me the way it does. I feel like I should be above it all. Just… let it go. Move on.
But I can’t.
I’m just uninterested in everything. Uninterested in living.
Until this girl came along, that is. She’s… nice. Such a dumb word. So generic. But it fits her. And it’s surprising because of who she is and where she came from. I think about that little condo of hers and it’s bothers me so much, I can’t wrap my head around it.
The bareness of it. The emptiness. That rice-mat bed. And the clothes.