Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
His head cocked at that. His words seemed both an encouragement and a challenge.
A question.
As if he were daring me to prove there was anything left of who I used to be.
I wanted to demand the same.
Beg him to show me.
To answer…why.
Why did he have to do it? He’d promised me. Promised. And here we were, seven years later, shells of who we’d hoped to be.
“It might end badly.”
He moved for me.
Dark energy vibrated out ahead of him, wrapping me in a greedy warmth I shouldn’t take comfort in. He touched my chin. The gentlest caress. The deepest wound. “It already did.”
For a moment, he gazed at me as if I were the light before he stepped away, breaking the connection.
The distance amplified the emptiness that would forever live on in me.
“This way,” he grunted as if he were suddenly ambushed in annoyance.
His shoes echoed on the floors as his lithe body moved. He headed for the hall on the right. There were three doors that ran along the left side.
He opened the first. “This will be you.”
Warily, I peeked through the doorway into the guest bedroom. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected when he’d brought me here. If he’d hide me away in some high tower or make me sleep like a dog on the floor.
Or maybe…maybe chain me to his bed.
I shoved that morbidly appealing thought out as quickly as it’d come, my teeth clamping down on my bottom lip as I eased around him and into the room.
Severity blistered from his body, shocking through me when I barely brushed his arm as I passed.
“Make yourself at home.” It sounded like a lie.
I swiveled back to face him, the man so gorgeous where he held the knob and looked at me like I was poison from the doorway.
“You’re going to make me regret this, aren’t you?”
“It seems fair since I’ll be regretting you for the rest of my life.”
Hurt pierced me through, and I sucked in a shattered breath.
A stake of regret moved through his devil smile.
“Logan—”
He blinked long. The stark pain in his expression was enough to cut me off. When he opened back up, his features had turned stoic.
“I have some things I need to take care of. Do try and not get into any trouble while I’m gone?”
The last tweaked with something that sounded close to a tease.
It pinched my heart in old memories that spun.
His carefree smile. The soft mischief in his eyes as he’d look down at me beneath the comfort of the night.
“You are nothing but trouble, aren’t you, Aster Rose?”
A giggle got free, my chest so tight with love I thought I would burst. “Am I worth it?”
Adoration filled his gaze. “You’re worth everything. Anything.”
I wondered if he saw it play out in my mind because his jaw clenched before he shut the door without saying anything else.
I blew out the strain toward the high ceiling before I turned to study the room.
The bedroom was decorated the same as the main area, all dark woods and heavy linens and masculine lines. There was a big window with a reading nook on the far side, overlooking the forest in the back, pines covered in snow that reached for the icy sky.
It was beautiful.
A clash of comfort that beat against the frigid cold.
It reminded me of the man.
Ice and fire.
Comfort and torment.
Everything I shouldn’t want and everything I wished I still had.
Warily, I picked up my clutch and forced myself to dig out my phone that I’d set to silent before I’d gone in search of Logan.
My nerves rattled so intensely I couldn’t keep my hands from trembling.
Spindly pricks of dread scraped my flesh and panged my chest in a clench of fear.
There was no question my actions were reckless.
Being here was in direct defiance of the promise I had made. A promise that had nearly killed me, but one I had no other choice but to make.
Barely keeping it together, I looked at the screen.
Seventeen missed calls.
Air wheezed from my lungs, and I did my best to steel myself, to find that internal fortitude, tapping into where my spirit shouted for freedom.
It was a conversation that couldn’t be avoided.
One that everything relied upon.
His blessing or his curse.
I guessed that had been the entire story of my life.
Resolved, I turned it off silent. Immediately, it began ringing again, as if it’d never stopped.
I accepted the call.
“Hi, Papa,” I whispered as I put the phone to my ear, knowing I’d likely incited a shitstorm with my text earlier this morning.
“Aster…where are you?” Fear burned through his hardened voice. “I’ve tried to call you a hundred times.”
“I’m safe.”
Silence pulsed for a short beat before I heard him swallow. “Tell me what is going on? I tried to call Jarek this morning to no avail, and now my daughter is missing.”