Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Since I know that isn’t close to the truth, I snatch up his pants from the floor before hightailing it to the front door.
He can’t chase me if he doesn’t have any clothes to conceal himself with.
“Tivy,” Elaine mutters in shock when I race past her so fast, I almost knock her over. She just exited the elevator with a man of a stout build and glistening eyes. “Is everything okay?” Her eyes stray between the open door of the penthouse and me when I frantically stab the close button on repeat. A million questions filter through her eyes, but only one escapes when she takes in the black pants I’m gripping for dear life. “Are those Mr. Carson’s pants?”
Her question barely leaves her mouth when she is bumped for the second time. “Octavia,” Jack murmurs as he pushes Elaine out of the way, striving to reach the closing doors before they slam shut. His dress shirt is buttoned wrong since it was thrown on in a hurry, and his hands are maintaining his modesty. “Wait!”
Well, they were maintaining his modesty before he uses one of them to bang on the now-closed elevator doors.
Mercifully, his attempt to open the doors is fruitless.
They remain tightly shut.
When I stab my finger into the button for the lobby, and the elevator jolts to life, Jack barks out, “Demand for the elevator to be returned to the penthouse!”
“I can’t,” I hear Elaine reply before her voice is gobbled up by the elevator’s rapid descent. “We don’t have those access codes yet.”
I reach the lobby so fast, the security officer manning the reception area only just picks up the shrilling phone on his desk when I dump jack’s pants near the reception desk, then whizz by him.
“Ma’am!” he shouts before signaling for the doorman to grab me.
Years of defensive maneuver training comes in handy when I shrug out of the doorman’s hold before sprinting through the double glass doors at the front of the building.
I’m so numb and shut down, I don’t have any clue on the direction I’m running until the pavement pounding under my feet for several long miles is switched for water, and the gentle sways of a ferry lull me back to reality along with the burning cuts on my feet.
I stop picking gravel out of the wounds on my feet when a familiar voice says, “Tivy, dear girl, what happened to you?” Merrick guides me to a row of seats a young couple just vacated since we’re close to pulling into port. “You’re drenched and bleeding. God, you could catch pneumonia.”
“I’m-I’m fine. I… ah… umm…” How can you tell anyone the horrors of your family? I’ve never been able to. That’s why Caleb and I moved to Seattle, so we wouldn’t have to live with that disdain anymore. We couldn’t even walk down the street without being ridiculed and gawked at with disgust. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.” Like always, I try to deflect matters from my fucked-up family’s past to something else. “Why are you here? Your shift doesn’t start for hours.”
“Rosco’s little girl was sick. I said I’d fill in for him.” After accepting a blanket and a bottle of water from a fellow worker, he mutters, “I’m glad I did. I was clearly meant to be here for you.”
“I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve any of it,” I mumble through a sob.
After pushing away the bottle of water Merrick is holding out for me, I stand to my feet. No amount of pleading will hide the grimace that crosses my face when the cuts on the bottom of my feet protest my sudden movement, so I set it free.
“Octavia—”
“I’m fine, Merrick. I just need a moment to think.” I stumble for the exit when I recall Jack’s reasoning for buying the penthouse.
Did he know this would be the outcome of our night?
Is he aware of who I am?
No, he couldn’t because there’s no way he’d look at me the way he does if he knew.
“Sorry,” I mumble to a fellow passenger when I take a right off the pier instead of left. I can’t go home just yet. I need to get my head in order first.
I don’t know how long I stay standing on the old wooden dock at Hamilton Park, but it’s long enough for my clothes to be drenched through from an unexpected downpour and for the sun to start warming my front.
It’s even long enough for Caleb to find me, and he hates the ocean more than anchovies.
“Tivy… fuck.” He rips off his rainproof jacket Jack’s company supplies all employees when they start, pulls it over my shoulders, then grips the top of my goosebump-riddled arms. “Where the fuck have you been? Jack is going out of his mind.”
“Jack?” I murmur, my mind still sloshed and precariously balancing on the cusp of sanity.