Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
I mean, if taking on my volatile stepbrothers as lovers and not even bothering to hide it from the public eye isn’t dangerous, what is? They just have to accept my craziness the way I’ve accepted their jealousy, possessiveness and commandeering attitudes and everything will be A-okay. Now to figure out how I accomplish that.
At the end of my lap, I come up for air and my fingertips spark and go numb.
Catherine.
She’s standing above me on the lip of the pool. Pointing a gun at me.
“Get out of the water, you conniving little bitch.”
Briefly, I consider turning and attempting to break Michael Phelps’s record in the opposite direction, but I know that’s not realistic. Shivering in the water, I glance around the pool, hoping for someone to help me, but it’s dinnertime and the place is deserted.
“There’s no one to save you this time, Zoe,” Catherine sneers. “My traitorous sons are occupied at the office for another hour and that gives me just enough time.”
“Time to what?” I croak.
“Drown you, of course.” She gestures for someone out of view to come forward and I swallow a lump when a man carries over an armful of scuba equipment. I’m so alarmed by her casual mention of murdering me that I almost don’t recognize the bungee instructor until he gives me a sickly smile and cuts his gaze to the side.
“It’s amazing what some people will do to cover their gambling debts, isn’t it?” Catherine murmurs. “I’ve learned to recognize cretins much more easily since I met your father.”
My heart is running a marathon in my chest, but I try and focus. Try to stay calm. The smartest thing I can do is keep her talking. Hope someone can come along and assist me. Though I doubt anyone will stick around once they see the madwoman wielding a gun. “Is that why you want to kill me?” I ask. “My father?”
“He humiliated me.” She shakes the gun at me. “Left me with his brat daughter to go globetrotting with models and sycophants. I put a roof over your head, pay your college tuition. And then you have the nerve to ask me for a job? I was just going to put you in product testing and hope for the worst. But then…” She seethes. “My sons so obviously wanted you. And I wasn’t going to let another member of your family humiliate me. Unfortunately, I was too late. Do you know how fast the news has spread about your little makeout session at the bungee testing yesterday? Once again, I am a laughingstock. And you have to go.”
“I didn’t expect it,” I breathe. “None of us expected…to fall in love. It happened so fast.”
“Love?” Catherine screeches.
Clearly it was the wrong thing to say.
She cocks the gun.
“How did you get out of jail?” I blurt, just barely preventing her from pulling the trigger.
“Money and a good lawyer got me out on bail. They have video of me walking into product testing. So what? I’m part owner of the fucking building. I can walk where I want!” She tips her head at the instructor. “I’m not going to tell the police that he’s the one who really tampered with the harness—at my request—in exchange for him helping me now.”
When her smile turns sinister, moisture starts to blur my vision. There’s no way I can fight off a full-grown man. Or a woman with a gun. What am I going to do?
“Get in the water with her,” Catherine snaps at the man. “Hook her into the equipment and hold her underwater until it’s over.” As the man hops into the water to follow Catherine’s instructions, she gives me a triumphant smile. “This scuba equipment was next on the agenda to be tested. After your little show of rebellion yesterday, they’ll assume you disobeyed them again.”
“I’m a certified diver,” I say, trying to evade the instructor. “How do you plan to—”
“Oh, there’s no oxygen in the tank. Didn’t I mention that?” She laughs. “We were going to bring you down to the river to stage the accident, but you made it easy by going for a swim.”
This woman has lost her marbles.
Does she actually think Bridger and Jacob are going to believe I went to the office and brought home equipment to test it alone? Just to be obstinate?
Okay, yeah.
After my actions yesterday, they could totally believe that.
“Please don’t do this. I’ll…I’ll leave. I’ll leave and never come back.” Or at least, I would try. I have no doubt Bridger and Jacob would track me down to the ends of the earth. “Catherine, please. I’m sorry about what my father did—”
“Shut up!” She fires a bullet into the water, about a foot away from my elbow, and I suck in a breath, turning to little more than a bobbing ice cube.