Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
If a movie had the name Theo Castille attached to it, people flocked to the theater. And that was still something I was proud of, even if being so famous sometimes felt like a golden prison.
I sipped on my Pinot as I started reading the Sanford script. I got lost in the story immediately—a mystery, about a man who couldn’t remember who he was.
But my big, blue couch was practically more comfortable than my bed, and I’d slept like shit the night before. My eyes started to get droopy an hour later.
My nap was interrupted a little while later with the ding of my phone.
I hummed. “Computer,” I said, activating the voice command system. “Play new text messages.”
Her robotic, British-accented voice read the new text, the sound coming through the multi-speaker surround system.
“Text message from: Hot Bar Guy. I needed that kiss, too, by the way. So fucking badly. I want to taste you in other places, too. No other new messages.”
I sat up a little straighter, a smile coming over my lips. The script had still been resting on my chest, and it slid down onto the couch.
“Well, hot damn,” I said. “Computer, read my last text message again.”
She read it out again, and something about his deliciously filthy contents being read by my voice-activation system tickled me in all the right ways.
“Computer, send message to Hot Bar Guy. You can taste me anywhere you want,” I said, pausing to think of what else to say.
Just then, there was a faint little crack, just outside the bay window.
I bolted upright. The skin on the back of my spine prickled and my senses immediately heightened, even in my groggy state. Ever since my stalker had become a fixture in my life, I’d woken up with a start every once in a while, usually to nothing.
It was just starting to get dark outside, and the only light in my house was the table lamp beside me that I’d been using to read. I must have only been out for an hour or two.
Had I imagined it? Was the cracking sound just a part of a dream?
Crack.
I heard it again, unmistakably this time. And then, just at the corner of the bay window, I saw a shadowy movement, just beyond the Juniper tree.
My heart slammed in my chest. Fuck. I’d nodded off before I got the chance to set the alarm. I was in a big, new, unfamiliar house, all alone. I got off the couch and pounded up the hardwood stairs to the bedroom, looking around for my grandpa’s old baseball bat.
“Where the fuck is it?” I whispered to myself, looking all around. I wasn’t any good at self-defense of any kind—I was known for my beauty and my waifishness, not exactly for being a fighter—and when I was scared, the baseball bat was my only solace.
“Send text message to: Hot Bar Guy?” the system said, which suddenly sounded far too loud.
“Computer, stop,” I commanded, and it dinged at me.
My room still had a jumble of cardboard boxes that hadn’t been unpacked yet. I had nothing for self-defense other than a pair of scissors on top of one of the boxes. I grabbed them and headed back downstairs, swallowing hard as I made my way to the front doors.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I whispered again, shaking a little as I opened one of the doors with a creak and made my way outside.
I hated doing this alone. My throat was tight as I rounded the corner to where the big Juniper tree stood, outside of the bay window. This wasn’t like my house in Los Angeles, where the whole street was lit by streetlights, and the neighbors were fairly close by. This was Amberfield, Kansas. The moment the sun dropped past the horizon, things got dark. My closest neighbor was so far down the hilly street I could barely see the house. God damn it, I had to ask Jack to install the outdoor lighting sooner rather than later.
And then I saw it. Another flash of movement, this time far out at the oak tree at the edge of my property. It was a guy’s body, for sure, and he took off like a goddamn cheetah, running to a black SUV parked down the road.
“Fuck,” I said. I had no time. I couldn’t make out the license plate number for shit. And as my brain crumbled thinking about what the fuck I should do, I could only watch as the guy hopped into the SUV and stole off down the road, the tires screeching as he rounded a corner.
Dread filled my body, even though I was relieved that he was gone. I felt safer, for now, at least, but I also knew that this could only mean one thing.
My idea about “hiding out” in small-town Kansas had just been another pipe dream. Just like when I’d run off to Paris.