Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“What is it? Are you hurt? Did you hurt yourself?” I ask Mara when a hiss follows her final step down from the ladder.
“It’s n-nothing.”
This woman’s ability to lie is as woeful as her ability to sit still. I kept on the cleaning service company Val helms to ensure Mara didn’t need to clean toilets and make beds for a living, but it seems as if she would rather be elbow deep in shit than sit around, twiddling her thumbs all day.
I’ve caught her scrubbing the inside of the wall oven, cleaning the tracks of the windows, and rearranging the linen cupboard this week alone.
Now, she’s dusting the damn chandeliers.
If she had the appropriate equipment, she would have scaled the building by now to clean the floor-to-ceiling window of my office from the outside. I do not doubt that.
Mara has work ethics by the bucketload. Veronika—the woman who refused to leave town until she received the whole nine yards for our “date” multiple media agencies ran as front-page news—can’t say the same.
She didn’t even show up to the etiquette class my mother organized for her, hoping it would have me seeing her in a different light, because it was scheduled to start at 10 a.m.
She stood across from my mother, the very essence of a woman who would sell her soul to the devil for the right amount of coin, and told her she doesn’t get out of bed before midday for anything or anyone.
Her lack of interest in bettering herself proves she isn’t the woman to stand by my side, but my mother isn’t convinced. She’s confident that once the “hero complex” fueling my obsession with Mara wears off, I’ll be grateful Veronika is in the wings, ready to swoop in and save the day.
Mara entering the kitchen to collect the food I have Chef prepare in excess each meal stole my rebuttal.
Mara thinks Chef is bad with portion control. She has no inkling I ordered him to triple the quantity he usually serves each day to ensure there are leftovers for Mara to take home. I don’t care what she does with the food once she leaves here with it. Knowing she can eat when hungry makes me desire to hand-feed her anytime her stomach growls.
When Mara’s second hiss is strained through clenched teeth, I guide her toward the armchair Rafael vacated. I don’t know where he goes after placing Mara into a situation that demands a response from me, but he disappears if it means Mara and I will be the only two people in the room.
I know what he’s doing. He knows I’m not strong enough to withstand the magnetizing pull that forever cracks between Mara and me and is hopeful it will remind me that my mother is not a woman I should take advice from.
It does. Every spasm affects me, but I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. It isn’t solely my skeletons I’m fighting to keep hidden. They’re not even Mara’s, but I have no right to steal her cloak of invisibility any more than the woman I have an unhealthy obsession with.
Partway across the den, Mara says, “I’m fine, Ark. Truly. The arch of my foot is just a little tender from trying to m-maintain a grip on the ladder.”
“Grip on the top rung of a ladder you should have never been on.”
“It is my job to c-clean—”
“It is your job to do whatever the hell I tell you to do,” I interrupt, doubling the rise and fall of her chest. “And for now, I am telling you to sit.”
She plops onto the armchair, her submissiveness sending a current straight to my cock. It acts as if I didn’t find release only hours ago when the hem of her maid’s outfit slips high on her thigh from me carefully lifting her foot to inspect her ankle.
I’ve told Mara numerous times to wear whatever she feels comfortable in, but each day, without fail, she arrives looking like every billionaire’s wet dream, and I’m forced to stroke my cock for the second time before midday.
Heat creeps across the back of Mara’s knees when I roll down the cuff of her sock. It matches the coloring that hits my cheeks when I notice her ankle is swollen.
“Did you fall? Your ankle looks inflamed. That isn’t arch damage from gripping a ladder too firmly.”
“It’s nothing—”
I flash her a stern glare, stopping her lie before it can be fully issued. I have enough people lying to me and for me. I don’t need more.
You’d swear Mara heard my inner thoughts when she confesses, “I wasn’t watching where I was going, and I t-tripped over a box in the entryway this morning.” The color drains from her face as she glances at the floor. “It was addressed to Veronika.”