Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 438(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Once we’re in the street, I untangle my fingers from Saverio’s and take two steps away. “How could you?”
He observes me with a neutral expression. “How could I what?”
“Tell them,” I say, pinning my arms at my sides.
“Tell them what?”
“That I’m pregnant.”
He raises a brow. “You didn’t tell them you were pregnant?”
No, and yes, that was wrong. Unable to admit that I’m that person, a deceptive employee who abused my employer’s trust, I spin around and try to escape, but I don’t make it two steps before his fingers curl around my bicep.
He flings me around to face him. “Why didn’t you tell them?”
I blink, trying to come up with an excuse, but nothing can justify my behavior.
“They should know.” He loosens his hold, but he doesn’t let me go. “You’ll need time off for medical checkups, and later, you’ll go on maternity leave.”
I jerk my arm from his grasp. “Don’t lecture me on how to run my life.”
“Lecture you?” He gives me a baffled look. “These are simple logistics. You shouldn’t take these arrangements so lightly. Your health is at stake.”
“There you go again, carrying on about my health, talking as if you care.” My voice rises in volume. “I just want you to leave me alone.”
He’s on top of me in a wink, pulling me close to his chest, smothering me in the woolly fabric of his jacket and the expensive smell of his spicy cologne.
“That’s not going to happen, my treasure,” he whispers in a low and dark voice in my ear. “You’re stuck with me, whether you like it or not.” His deep timbre washes over my senses, sending goosebumps over my skin, but it’s the underlying warning in his words more than the raspy quality of his baritone resonance that makes me shiver. “I suggest you get used to the idea.”
As suddenly as he grabbed me, he lets me go. The minute I’m free, I backtrack and gulp in a lungful of air.
He’s dangerous, this man, so much more than just on a physical level. He scares me, and not only because of his strength. I’m terrified of the power he holds over me.
We simply stand there and look at each other, measuring one another as the pedestrians part around us and carry on without paying us attention. Despite the hundreds of people surrounding me, I’ve never felt more isolated or vulnerable.
I take another step back, the urge to flee pumping adrenaline through my veins.
He’s quick to close the distance between us, not allowing me space. “Do you understand me?”
I stare up at his face, fearing and hating him at the same time.
“Come on,” he says, cupping my cheek. “You’ll give people the wrong idea if you look at me with so much animosity. I’m sure you can find it in you to like me if you try.”
“Like you?” I stammer, jerking my face away. “Are you out of your mind? You were going to kill me. If I weren’t your alibi, I’d be on the bottom of the river with a stone tied around my ankle.”
“No,” he says softly, giving me a long, intense look. “A river is too sloppy. It’s too easy for a rope to deteriorate or to get chomped through by fish. There’s always the risk of a body surfacing. Besides, a water burial isn’t pretty. If I were going to kill you, I’d bury you in the woods near a beautiful site with flowers, somewhere on a hill overlooking the sea.” Taking a strand of my hair, he rubs it between his fingers. “I’d plant thorn bushes on your grave so that wild animals couldn’t dig up your body and eat your bones.” Something dark passes over his features. “I think I’d visit that place often.” Saying more to himself than to me, he continues, “Yes, I don’t think I would’ve been able to stay away.”
I gape at him in horror, unable to believe my ears.
“But I’m not going to kill you.” He releases the lock of hair he’s been twisting around his finger, tilting his head to study the curl that bounces back like a spring. “As long as you behave, you have nothing to fear.”
Nothing to fear? No statement can be further from the truth.
“Now,” he says, taking my hand and fixing me with that intense gaze that’s gone from dangerous to deviant in the blink of an eye. “You owe me an answer. Do you understand how this is going to work, tesoro?”
Frightened out of my wits and unable to do anything else, I nod.
“Good.” He traces my jaw with a thumb. “Let’s get you home.”
Not waiting for my compliance, he turns me in the in the direction of my apartment building and drags me along with him.
“How did you know?” I ask.
He looks down at me with the same indulgent smile of earlier. “Know what?”