Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
“A week. The guys didn’t know when best to tell him.” I can see she’s torn. She wants to go to Brad, but she won’t. She’ll give him the time he needs to process this. And he will. He has no choice.
“Nolan’s twenty-one, Pearl.” She looks at me, as if willing me to connect dots that don’t seem connectable. But if Brad is thirty-five . . . oh. “Nolan’s the same age as I am,” I whisper, my heart breaking. That probably explains the look of disdain just thrown at me. I’m the same age as his son. Beau just nods, because what else can she say? And that look of distain? It wasn’t for me. It was for himself. I just hope he didn’t think I, along with everyone else, knew who Nolan was. “His son?” I whisper. His twenty-one-year-old son.
And that has compounded Brad’s problem.
And ended the only good thing that’s happened in my life. I breathe in the strength I need and face Beau. “Have you told anyone?” I ask. She shakes her head. Good. “Brad’s got enough on his plate right now. He doesn’t need a headache from you or the others about”—I swallow, beg the pain to fuck off—“about . . . me.”
She smiles, nodding, and I hate that she can see the hurt and disappointment I’m trying so hard to hide. I hate that she’s silently concluding that she was right. That I would be an idiot to expect more from the emotionally detached, fuck machine Brad Black. Because I’m young and naïve and stupid. I won’t correct her. I didn’t expect a thing from Brad. Not at first. I was simply answering to the chemistry that caught me off guard. He was the one who came back. He was the one who told me no other man would ever touch me again. He was the one who claimed me as his. And I was so fine with that.
My love.
So I am an idiot.
Because the bastard made me fall in love with the forbidden, dangerous, cold but passionate beast. He made me see past the shallow, cool-hearted arsehole who used women to scratch his itches. And I can’t even be mad with him for making me feel wanted. Because I wanted him to want me. I wanted him to want me so much, he would think twice about casting me aside—or worse—when he finds out who I really am.
“I’m sure he’ll come round,” I say, putting on a brave face and standing. Because, truly, I have faced worse than this temporary heartache. “He probably just needs some space to get his head around it.”
“I hope so.”
“He’ll be fine,” I assure her. I know they’re close. I know Beau worries about him. “I should get back. I want to wrap up on the—” What the hell do I need to do? “The architect wants some final details for the drawings on Winstable.”
“Sounds like things are moving in the right direction.”
“Yeah, and then we have to go through the permit application, and all that, so . . .” I blow out my cheeks. “Busy, busy, busy.” I turn before my face betrays me or my voice becomes wobbly. “See you at home.”
Home.
That’s what I’ll be leaving. The home I found here with people fucked up yet beautiful. Wrong yet right.
Where Brad was mine. Momentarily.
My legs take me to the changing rooms to get dressed, and then I manage to use words to ask to be taken back to the mansion. All the while, I beg my tears to stay back. For my heart to hold it together, just for a little longer. Because the moment I don’t have an audience, everything will fall.
My face.
My tears.
My heart.
42
BRAD
* * *
I slap a wedge of cash in Jeeves’s hand as I pass him, and in return he slips me a keycard. “The suite is suitably stocked, Mr. Black.”
“Good man,” I grunt, hitting the elevator call button aggressively. I pull out my cell and check to see if tonight’s lay has arrived. Some nameless, faceless someone who is going to help me escape. One ordered every day for the next three days.
I step into the elevator when the doors open and hit the button for the twenty-ninth floor, nodding to Jeeves as he discreetly slips the handful of bills into his top pocket. As soon as the doors meet in the middle, I drop my head.
And breathe.
I’m hot. Suffocating. I start to pace up and down in the small box, watching the dial count up the floors.
So fucking slowly.
My heartrate increases.
I close my eyes, leaning back against the back wall. I see Uncle Carlo dragging me out of a hotel room. I see him putting a gun to my head. I see the girl I was fucking running scared. I was twenty-one.