Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 72308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll consider it.”
“You want some breakfast before you go?” he asked as he guided me into the hallway and back to the main room.
“No. I’ve got too much to do today.”
He gave me a kiss by the elevator then said goodbye.
After I left, I headed to the bar to grab my money from Jerome. It was before seven, so the place was still open. When I walked inside, hardly anyone was there, including Kyle, and I headed to the office in the back to collect my money for the work I would gladly do for free.
Camille was already there. Jerome handed her a wad of cash that stressed the corners of the white envelope. It must be her first payment because she tested the weight of the money and examined it like she’d never seen so much cash before.
“Your first payday, huh?” I walked over, hoping my large jacket would hide the wrinkles in my dress.
Camille looked at me before she held up the money. “Yep. Should have brought a bigger purse…”
I entered the office and grabbed my cash before I walked out with Camille. “So, how are things going with Bartholomew?”
She stilled at the sound of his name, her eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Grave told me,” I explained. “He also said the guy is dangerous.”
“He definitely is—but not to me.”
We made it outside, the cold winter air surrounding us and making our breath escape as fog. “I guess that mean things are going well?”
“I’d say so,” she said. “I like him.”
We stood together at the curb, our cars parked at the sidewalk. “That’s good. I know getting into this line of work can be a hard adjustment, but it seems like you’re adapting well.”
She gave a shrug.
I assumed she was still in love with Cauldron, even if she didn’t say it out loud, so it must be hard to have a new client, a man you didn’t even know.
“Cauldron saw us together at a party. Now he won’t leave me alone.”
“What does he want?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “He says he wants me back, but I don’t think he even knows what he wants.”
I saw the sadness in her eyes—and the rage.
“He doesn’t want me, but he doesn’t want anyone else to want me either.”
“Maybe seeing you with someone else is a wake-up call for him.”
“No,” she said. “It’s just a reminder that he only wants what he can’t have…”
19
GRAVE
“Mr. Toussaint, your brother is here to see you.”
I looked up from my desk at my butler. Elise left late that morning, and it was barely past noon before another visitor came knocking. At this rate, I would never get anything done. “Send him in.”
Cauldron walked in the door a moment later, his eyes bloodshot like he hadn’t slept in a couple days. He dropped onto one of the couches without saying a word to me.
He looked like shit, but it would be wrong to kick him when he was already down. “What happened?”
He leaned back in the cushions and put his feet on my coffee table.
I let his lack of manners slide.
I came around the desk and sat across from him. “Scotch?”
He raised his hand and shook it. “If I have any more, I’ll drop dead.”
“That doesn’t sound good.”
His neck rested on the back of the cushion, and he looked at the ceiling for a while. “I fucked up, man.”
“You don’t say.”
“I went to her apartment…and it’s like she hates me.”
“I don’t mean to make you feel bad, Cauldron, but you hurt her pretty bad. And more than once.”
He straightened in the chair, forearms moving to his knees. “She’s back in the business. Bartholomew is her client.”
That was disappointing news. She’d dreamed of getting out of the business to do something else with her life, but she wound up back in the same place. And Bartholomew wasn’t a regular client. He lived a dangerous life.
“She said she likes him.”
“I’m sorry.” They were hollow words, but it was better than saying nothing at all.
“I tried to get her back, but she said no.”
“Why would you do that?”
His eyes moved to mine.
“Nothing has changed. She knows that. So why would she say yes?”
“Everything has changed. It’s been the worst month of my life.”
“I suspect she agrees with me on this. Seems like you only want her out of jealousy.”
He gave me a cold look. “It certainly helps… I’ll give you that.”
“She’s given you plenty of chances, Cauldron. She’d have no self-respect if she did it again—”
“Whose side are you on, exactly?”
“I know her better than you do. That’s all.”
He sank back into the couch. “I’ve never seen her like that. Never seen her possess such indifference mixed with rage. I felt like a goddamn stranger. An inconvenience to her life.”
I turned quiet and let him vent his frustrations.
“But when I told her I hadn’t been with anyone else…she gave me this look. She couldn’t hide it as hard as she tried. It was quick and faint, but I caught it.”