Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
It’s haunting and beautiful.
It’s the small garden of purple lilacs losing their leaves to the fall in the middle of the circular driveway where my gaze lingers though.
I’m still frowning in confusion when the SUV rolls to a stop.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere safe with people you can trust,” Oni says ominously next to me in the back seat. The exec never even looks up from her phone. She’s been working nonstop to scramble a team together for me to deal with the fallout of being alive.
Because apparently when you’re famous even living is scandalous.
I start to tell her that I don’t trust anyone that isn’t them, my mountain men, when a shadow falls over the window and the words die unspoken. It doesn’t matter. While nothing has changed for me, I know they will never trust me again. Never…let themselves love me again.
The back door is yanked open before I can tumble down that heartbreak hill.
“Relly!” Before I can get a glimpse of the culprit or even be properly startled, I’m pulled out of the SUV and lifted into a bear hug. The cologne is rich and smells expensive, and the burgundy silk shirt is smooth against my smashed cheek. “Holy shit. It’s you. It’s really you. You’re alive. What the fuck?”
I finally get a glimpse of my host when I’m set on my feet and he pushes me to arm’s length to get a good look at me. I gape at the blond man with black eyes and a magazine-cover smile. And I do mean his face and smile have literally been plastered on the front cover of several magazines around the globe. “Loren?”
The hands still holding my shoulders give a comforting squeeze in answer. “In the flesh, baby girl.” He goes back to looking me over in that assessing yet platonic way of his. “You look like shit by the way.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Come on,” he says while taking my hand. “Let’s get you inside and settled in.”
“Wait… I’m staying here?”
“Of course,” he answers easily. “Where else are you going to find a better hideout? And with the single most interesting group of people on the planet.”
I can think of one place, but that’s gone now. It’s over. I walked away knowing I could never go back, so I force the cabin that’s no more, the Cold Peaks, and them from my mind as I follow Loren James, the bassist of Bound, around the SUV.
The ornate front doors of the mansion are thrown open, and the space is filled with three other bodies. I take in the grim smiles of Houston Morrow, Jericho Noble, and Braxton Fawn, and I want to weep.
Oni could have stashed me anywhere—some ridiculous villa or penthouse in the sky where I’d be alone with only the paid staff to keep me company, but instead, she was perceptive enough to bring me here. To make sure the first faces I see on my return home are friendly ones. And probably the only ones I’d see for a long while.
I send her a grateful smile that she once again waves away like she’s just doing her job and it’s no big deal. Maybe to those accustomed to basic human decency, but for me, it’s a very big deal.
“Just so you know,” Braxton says when her doe eyes land on my trembling smile. “If you cry, these guys will cry, and then I’ll have to spend the rest of the night reinflating their manly egos.”
I start crying, and the broad-shouldered man next to her with brown hair and green eyes that reminds me of a certain horde shifts uncomfortably like he wants to comfort me but doesn’t know how. “Welcome home,” Houston greets.
“We’re so happy you’re alive,” Rich says as he shoves a set of drumsticks in his front pocket.
“For the record,” Loren says. “I never doubted for a second that she was still alive.”
Rich rolls his eyes. “You literally cried for a week when we all got the news, plastered her pictures all over your Insta, called her the second baddest bitch to ever live, and ranted at anyone online who talked shit about her.”
“I was grieving,” Loren defends through gritted teeth.
“We had to call in a PR crisis team after you told a fan he should walk off a cliff for calling her overrated,” Houston reminds him.
Loren cringes at the reminder, and then his cheeks warm when he catches me gaping. I have a feeling I wasn’t supposed to hear all of that. “Don’t look so surprised, Relly. I told you the day we met that I’m a huge fan.”
“But are you sure you want me staying here? If it gets out that I’m here I don’t want to bring that kind of heat on you.”
“Da!”
It’s only then that I notice the infant in Braxton’s arms, who is currently staring at me and trying to eat a fistful of her hair. He has the same red hair, though his is a more muted shade than his mother’s fiery red.