Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 54496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54496 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 272(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
The only person left in the world that I still trusted was Amber. I spent hours upon hours with her, distancing myself from Thorn while silently observing her, trying to decide whether she deserved the fate he’d condemned her too.
That afternoon, we were sitting on the balcony of her room after practice, doing stretching and massaging cooling lotion onto our aching legs. I could feel something was off - Amber kept looking away, unable to meet my eyes and obviously preoccupied with thoughts of her own.
“I have to tell you something,” she finally admitted what I already knew, her voice shakier than I’d ever heard it. “And I’m scared.”
I looked back to the room, slowly got up and shut the French doors on the balcony. “The weather is so nice today,” I said as I shut them. “Beautiful and sunny. There’s a bit of a breeze, though. I’ll just shut the doors so they don’t slam shut themselves.”
Amber stared at me with wide eyes, and I smiled at her before sitting back down and taking the bottle of lotion from her hands.
“Cameras inside,” I explained. “Hopefully there are none out here.”
She nodded, whispering, “I know.”
“About the cameras?” I asked, and she nodded again, suddenly grabbing my hand and holding onto me with a panicked expression on her face.
“Harlow, I slept with someone,” she said, and I stared at her as her eyes filled with tears of guilt. She wiped at them with her dainty fingers. “I’m so sorry. I tried to hide it. I didn’t want to tell you, burden you.”
“Did they force you?” I asked her urgently, gripping onto her arms.
“No,” she said, giving me a surprised look and obviously noticing that a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. “Did… did they force you?”
I carefully avoided the question and dodged the topic by asking more about her confession. “What happened? Who is it? Does Thorn know?”
“He’s… he’s a guard,” Amber admitted. “We just connected, I guess. He was so rough at first, but we found out more and more about each other and it just… happened.”
It was hard to comprehend that Amber was as old as me. She’d always felt like a younger sister, even if by just a couple of months, so I had a protective streak when it came to her. I needed to know losing her virginity had been her choice.
“And… no,” she finally whispered. “To answer your last question. Thorn doesn’t know. Do you… do you think he’ll be mad?”
I stared at her, knowing full well there was no way she could possibly be aware of Thorn’s plans for her. He hadn’t told her yet, and I wasn’t about to, but at that moment, I knew I had to get us both the hell out of there.
“Amber,” I said urgently, reaching for her and grasping her hand while she looked at me with surprise in her eyes. “I want to get away from here. I want to run. Will you come with me?”
“Run away?” she asked, glancing at our clasped hands then behind us at the opulence and luxury of the Mansion. “But… We have everything here.”
“Everything?” I asked her desperately, shaking my head with the knowledge she didn’t yet possess. “We have nothing, Amber. We’re nothing but property here. Wouldn’t you rather be back in London, living your own life?”
Her eyes grew distant as she thought hard about it, and for a second, I was certain she would turn me down.
“Do you love him?” I asked her, and her eyes grew even wider. “The man, the guard… The one you slept with, Amber. Do you love him?”
Her answer could change everything. It could make me want to stay behind and fight for her relationship with Thorn, make him reconsider things. All I needed to hear were those three little words from her lips, telling me she loved the man. But they weren’t coming.
“Do you want to leave?” I asked when she didn’t answer.
“I…” She looked into my eyes, and her expression turned serious. “I will leave. For you. With you.”
I didn’t completely understand her cryptic answer, sounding almost like she wanted to stay there forever, but that seemed unfathomable to me. She had a family back home and her love of dancing, her own life… How could she want to leave all that behind? Even with the man she’d mentioned, their feelings obviously hadn’t evolved further than them sleeping together. That in of itself was a shock to me.
“I’ll help you,” she went on. “I think… I think he, the guard, could be the answer.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, and she leaned closer conspiratorially.
“I know there are deliveries here daily,” she said softly, concealing her voice so the cameras inside surely wouldn’t be able to pick it up. “Food, laundry, clothes, all kinds of things. And he… he oversees some of it. I think I could trick him somehow… get us out of here.”