Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56771 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 284(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
She’s sitting up in bed, reading a book. When she sees me, she smiles. She’s concerned—the mood is all over her—but she smiles.
“Is everything okay between you and Emma?”
Rosa rolls her eyes. “Eddie, right?”
“You haven’t spoken since breakfast.”
“She wanted to know about Matt.”
Matt. Matvei. A man who almost did the unthinkable to my daughter—a man I’ve never been able to find.
“About the phone blocker,” she says. “I couldn’t bear to think about it, but then I felt so guilty. She’s only here because of me. She only saw what she saw because of me. She’s only in danger because of me. I can’t look at her. It eats me up.”
“Oh, Rosa.”
I hold my daughter gently, the guilt crushing me. If that were true, I would reveal the truth right now, wouldn’t I? I would let it all out. I’d tell her about last night and my obsessive thoughts of giving her brothers and sisters, but I don’t. I just hold her.
“You don’t have to discuss anything you don’t want to, and you don’t have to feel guilty about anything.”
CHAPTER NINE
Emma
I put my textbook aside when somebody knocks on the door—not the basement door, the bedroom door.
“Hello?”
“It’s Leonardo,” he says, which annoys me for some reason.
It’s as if he thinks using the full version of his first name somehow corrects what we did last night, what he started. Plus, he’s being all formal, like we’re nothing to each other, which we are… nothing. I need to accept that.
When he opens the door, I can’t process anything other than how hot he is. Burning, hell, everything fiery in the whole world blazing up and down his body. He’s wearing a slick silver suit, a silver wristwatch, and his top two shirt buttons open, revealing his powerful pectorals. It’s too easy to superimpose last night onto him now. His hand wrapped around his enormous manhood, pumping and staring obsessively. He leaves the door open.
“I came to say… last night was a dream. Understand?”
I should tell him yes. All day, I’ve been experiencing the guilt that erupted at breakfast. It gnaws at me, like when Mom was disintegrating in front of my eyes. There I go again, getting emotional. No, no emotions. Shut. Them. Down.
“I get it,” I say coldly.
He smirks, adjusts his shirt cuff, and nods. “Good. That was easy.”
“Expected it to be a challenge, did you?”
His smirk twitches.
“Or did you want it to be a challenge?”
I can hear Mom in my voice, her confident, argumentative tone, the one she got when she was in the right and wasn’t too ashamed to let people know it. It never crossed over into arrogant posturing.
“Are you always this sassy?” he snaps.
At the word sassy, a strange thrill dances through me.
Why? Do you like it? I almost say, but then an ugly mixture of guilt and self-doubt cuts me off.
“Sometimes,” I reply lamely. “When it’s warranted.”
He glances at the door, a chip in his gruff armor, a flash of uncertainty in his always-certain eyes. “You must know what we did was a mist—”
“I don’t recall sneaking up the basement stairs, picking the lock, then walking up another flight of stairs and opening your door.”
He walks to the edge of the bed. Suddenly, I’m very aware I’m only wearing a tank top and shorts since I decided to study in bed. That way, I could sulk, regret, and desire between minute-long bouts of actual work.
Those captivating contrasting eyes roam down to my chest. His jaw has a definite hardening, his temples pulsing, thunder clashing in him. I never dreamed any man could look at me like that, as if nothing and nobody else exists, and definitely not Leo.
“What are you studying?” he asks.
He’s changing the subject, but okay.
“Accounting. I’m just reviewing this old textbook before starting an online course.”
“Ah, of course. You mentioned.” He nods. “Why do you want to be an accountant?”
“Why do you care?”
He gets that indulgent expression as if pleased that I’m giving him some fire. “Can’t a man be interested in his daughter’s closest friend?”
Not if that man’s going to be all hot and heavy one minute and all distant the next. He’s messing with my head to where I’m unsure if I should tell Rosa, pretend it never happened, or leap on him.
“It’s simple. Math is easier than people. It always has been. If it wasn’t for M…”
I don’t finish. I brought that up way too easily. For some warped reason, I feel like I can speak to Leo. He sits on the bed. We both know this is a mistake, but he does it anyway.
“Your mother?” he asks. “I know you lost her.”
I swallow and avert my gaze. “I would’ve studied it sooner, but with the move and catching up in high school…”
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“You know what it’s like, losing somebody,” I reply, forcing myself to look at him. “Angelica.”