Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Your grandfather sounds like he was a really special person.”
I smiled, thinking how he would have blustered about being called special. “Aye, he was.”
“And your dad? Did you ever hear from him again?”
Expression grim, I nodded. “He was in and out of my life while I lived in Glasgow. Usually when he needed money. And I heard from him a few days ago. In fact, just before you came to me with the marriage proposal, he approached me for the first time in years.” I took a chug of the coffee and then placed the cup down on the side table. “He’s one of the reasons I said yes to you. He threatened to contest my grandfather’s will and take the farm off me with plans of selling all the land.”
“That asshole,” she snapped, her dark eyes sparkling with fury. On my behalf. “Let him try. I have access to the best freaking lawyers on the planet. We’ll destroy him.”
Tenderness and guilt mingled at her fierce declaration.
I’d told her the worst of me … and yet she offered me this … a kind of blind loyalty.
Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to kiss her. To press her down into the couch and cover every inch of her with me. My taste, my scent, my heat … I wanted her to drown in it and I wanted to drown in hers.
Her breath caught, her gaze dipping to my mouth as if she could feel my sudden hunger.
“Jared?” she whispered.
There was desire in her eyes but confusion in her tone. It was enough to snap me out of the dangerous spell she’d put me under. I yanked my gaze from her and cleared my throat. What had we been saying?
My dad.
Right.
“He, uh, he texted me a few days ago and he knows about us. So he knows that he’s fucked financially. He’s just trying to mess with my head.”
I felt a touch on my hand and turned to find her slim fingers covering mine.
When our eyes met, she offered sympathetically, “I’m sorry.” Her touch was brief. I wanted to snatch her hand back to me.
Attempting to orient myself, to get us back on track, I asked bluntly, “Why don’t you get along with your parents?”
She drew her knees even tighter to her chest. “I … um … it’s not … it’s hard to explain.”
Tamping down my frustration, I pushed, “You don’t have to tell me anything, Allegra. But you can trust me. What I told you … I’ve only ever told my grandfather and Sarah.”
“Really?”
“Aye, really. I’m not exactly a fountain of information, if you hadn’t noticed.”
She chuckled at my droll self-deprecation and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. I followed the movement, swallowing the urge to bridge the distance between us on the couch.
“I haven’t told anyone.”
That’s when I saw it. What Theo had mentioned. A hollow sadness in Allegra’s eyes. It was always there, I realized. I’d seen it before. I’d tried not to wonder at it and told myself it was none of my business. She was good at covering it up with smiles and optimism.
“Not even Aria?”
She shook her head. “Especially not Aria.” Her exhale this time was long and shaky.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” I promised her.
Allegra considered this. “Whatever happened tonight … I know you are making an effort to get to know me. Right?”
“Right.”
“Why?”
“Because … we’re alone in this bargain. Just you and me. And I didn’t want you to be lonely. Just because this is a business deal doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Right?”
Nibbling on her bottom lip, she took a moment before nodding. “I am lonely.”
Fuck.
“Allegra … I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” She blinked away tears. “I’ve been lonely for a really long time.”
That killed. That killed way more than it should for someone I wasn’t supposed to care that deeply for. “Why?” My voice was gruff with the feeling.
“I was … I’ve been forced to keep secrets. To protect myself. To protect Aria … Only my therapist knows and it’s not the same. She’s paid to keep my secrets, you know. I just … I feel like everyone sees me as Chiara and Wesley Howard’s daughter. A Malibu princess. And then I feel like the people who actually know me see me as a grand fuck-up. The one who Sloane Ironside had to save from a psycho when she was seventeen years old, after which her family forced her into rehab.” She shook her head. “That’s not who I feel like I am inside. I was just really angry and messed up and I had reason … and I can’t tell anyone. I can’t tell the one person who matters more to me than anyone the real reason. So now I will always be the selfish sister. The one with impulse control issues.” She gestured between us, laughing bitterly. “I guess marrying a guy for a visa doesn’t exactly prove otherwise.”