Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Dallas Costa: Second – did you get a new number just to harass me?
Ollie vB: I wouldn’t need to if I could rely on you to reply to my texts in a timely manner.
Dallas Costa: If this is about babysitting your pretend fiancée, I’ll be there in an hour. Luca’s babysitter got into a fender bender.
Ollie vB: Take the kid.
Dallas Costa: Briar isn’t going to hurt herself without adult supervision for sixty minutes.
Ollie vB: That’s not what I’m worried about.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Briar
Dallas would arrive to babysit me any moment now.
That left me with a few minutes all on my own. House staff milled about, completing their tasks without paying me any attention. Not many and nowhere on the second floor.
Jackpot.
As soon as Oliver’s Maserati (how many freaking cars did we own?) slid out of the 12-car garage, I dashed from the foyer window and up the curved staircase.
Guilt flared inside me as I made my way to the forbidden annex of the house. Oliver had explicitly asked me not to venture into the south wing. But he had no right to lock off an entire section of our home from me.
We were equals.
And he was lying about the hoarder thing.
Plus, he’d admitted to keeping things from me so as not to upset me, like the mysterious argument we had before my accident. If I didn’t take the initiative to hunt down the truth for myself, I might never find out.
Trio and Geezer clipped at my heels as I inched into the closed-off section of the property. A long, curved hallway stretched into the distance without a visible end, dark and dank with the stuffy air of an abandoned house.
Black-out curtains eclipsed the natural light. With my phone at a tech repair shop, I relied on the dogs to guide me in the dark. We walked for an entire minute before reaching some kind of pet gate.
Trio and Geezer stopped at my feet, looking up at me.
“You’ve never been here before, huh?” I unlatched the lock and swung the gate open. “My fiancé better not be hiding trafficked exotic animals in there.”
The dogs waited for me to step inside before following suit. With Geezer on his skateboard, tummy flushed against it, we kept the pace slow.
“Don’t worry, buddy.” I reached down to pat his head. “Mommy won’t leave your side.”
I straightened, startled to find piles upon piles of random knick-knacks scattered around. Maybe I’d miscalculated. Perhaps my fiancé did have a hoarding problem. Eyes squinted, I struggled to make out the objects. Some still remained in boxes, wrapped prettily with satin bows hugging the thick colorful cardboard.
I scooped Trio into my arms, scratching the back of his ear. “Maybe Daddy does have a hoarding problem.”
We continued down the corridor, careful to avoid the boxes that flanked both sides. Eventually, Geezer kept running into them, so I swapped him with his brother, tucking his skateboard under my arm as I held him.
The corridor seemed to go on forever before we reached the pinnacle of the wing, which consisted of a round family room area and other rooms. I blinked, confused. The place seemed tidy and very much lived-in.
A rowing tournament played on the screen of the obnoxious hundred-inch TV mounted on the wall. I inventoried the dimly lit room. One half-drunk iced soda on the coffee table. A stack of schoolbooks open beside it. A 5,000-piece puzzle, almost finished, sprawled right next to them.
The crackle of a radio floated from one of the rooms. Commentators of a sports show described a horse-racing competition over the roars of a cheering crowd.
Trio cocked his head sideways, giving me a whine that conveyed his bad feeling.
“It’s okay. You can stay here. I’ll go explore.”
Someone lived here. And I had no idea who it was. Or why.
I set Geezer down on his skateboard, my heart thrashing its way out of my chest. He wheeled over to the couch and slumped on the rug against it. The radio came from the furthest room, but I decided to try the closest door first.
I knocked, desperate to hear a response through my deafening pulse. Silence greeted me on the other side. I pushed the door open to find a state-of-the-art home gym. Empty. Rows of equipment stretched before me. A bench press, Smith machine, and an extensive dumbbell rack, but also parallel bars, a treatment table, and mobility sticks. Physical therapy equipment.
Was someone healing here? It made sense. The place was secluded enough, with a chunk of the lake all to itself, away from the prying eyes of the neighbors.
I stared out the window at the view. A small boatshed bordered the lake. During my initial tour of the place, I’d caught sight of rowing boats inside. Shells, as Sebastian used to call them. He was obsessed with the sport. But this PT equipment couldn’t belong to him. He didn’t hide from the world. On the contrary, he graced it with his dazzling beauty and charm.