Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
At first, her arms were by her sides, she wouldn’t hold onto him, but then it was like she knew he wasn’t going to let her go. She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her tightly. Road had never held anyone like this. No one had ever relied on him.
Over the years, women had grasped him in moments of passion and begged for him to never let them go, but they were women after their own needs. They didn’t care about him. No one had cared about him.
Dinah wasn’t chasing anything from him. In the few days he’d known her, she had tried to push him away.
He wasn’t going to let her go.
She sniffled. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” he said. “You don’t need to apologize for feeling grief. You loved your mom.”
“I did.”
“Still, I, ugh, I don’t know where that came from.” She swiped under her eyes, and lifted her face. “I must look a mess. Excuse me.”
“I’ll finish dinner.”
Some of her mascara had run, but Road had looked down into her eyes, and all he’d seen was beauty. Dinah was a fighter. She cared. She loved. And he wasn’t used to knowing a woman like her.
Dinah didn’t want this path, and yet, to save her mother, she had changed her dreams. That, to him, was selfless.
Running a hand down his face, he couldn’t ever allow her to know what he did. How he didn’t even question Sergey when he was given the order.
He had fucked up big time.
Going back to the stove, he tested the sliced sweet potatoes and found they were cooked, and the chicken was as well. He gave it a final taste, and satisfied with it, he sprinkled some cilantro and gave it a stir, before ladling bowlfuls out for both of them. He gave a final sprinkle of cilantro, squeezed the lime, and carried them through to her dining room.
Road stared at the seats on either side of the table and imagined her parents sitting with a small Dinah in between. He shook his head at the images building in his mind. He hadn’t known, and there was no way to go back to the past. Taking a seat on one side of the table, he placed Dinah’s on the opposite. Neither of them would be sitting in her parents’ seats. He didn’t even know why this mattered to him, but in that moment, it did.
Minutes later, Dinah appeared. Her hair had been pulled back into a bun at the base of her neck, and she’d wiped the makeup off her face. She hadn’t been wearing a lot of makeup to begin with. Her face was a little pink, he imagined from washing it.
“Hey,” she said. “You know, you really didn’t have to do this.”
“Ah, but I did. You gave me an ultimatum, and I followed through with it.”
She chuckled. “Okay, let me rephrase, I didn’t expect you to follow through with it. It smells so good.”
He winked at her.
Road didn’t take a bite, waiting for her to try. The moment she did, he saw her eyes close as she nodded her head.
“I am surprised.”
He chuckled. “I am a man full of surprises.”
“That you are. You like skulking in the shadows, allowing a girl to see her friend having sex with three different men, and you end the night with attempted strangulation. You are full of surprises.”
“Okay, so with you I don’t have the best track record. Can we agree to start over? I thought you were connected to … Golubev, and clearly you are, but you’re not at the same time.”
“I hate him,” Dinah said. “What he did to my mother … one day … I want to … I hope he gets what’s coming to him.”
“He will,” Road said.
“So, what is your story?” Dinah asked.
“That is for another time,” Road said.
“A man of surprises.”
“Yeah, and for now, I’d like to keep it that way.”
She shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Chapter Five
One Week Later
“You know, I’m starting to feel like you’re stalking me,” Dinah said. She arrived home after a grueling day of helping young women prepare for what they consider to be the biggest night of their lives. Also, she had booked a bride for three weeks away as well.
She was tired, but that was no different than most days. Her feet hurt, she had a slight headache, and she was hungry.
“What if I am stalking you?” Road asked.
Every night for the past week, he’d either been at the salon where she worked, or he was at her home. Each night, he made her food. Last night, he even brought ingredients he knew she didn’t have, just so he could make her something different.
She didn’t have to worry about going shopping, as he helped there as well. He didn’t take the ingredients home with him.
“Well, we’ve already established that I can’t call the cops as they are useless,” Dinah said. “So, I guess I better ask if you’re planning to kill me.”