Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 110757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110757 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Vibrations rumble through the soles of my boots as the ground gives away Marcus’s irritation. His expression remains unbothered, but he’s telling Pax if they kill us, they’re going down, too.
“Okay,” Pax says, relenting. “We’ll end this battle because I’ve got a whole war planned, and I enjoy watching you guys squirm. Theron’s coming to your camp to make sure we get half of everything.”
“As long as he’s unarmed,” Marcus says. “And if he threatens my people in any way, don’t expect him back.”
Pax nods his agreement. I don’t love that Marcus agreed to let Theron into our camp. He’s proved himself capable of doing a lot of damage.
But I understand. Marcus was right—Theron doesn’t have aromium. That’s why he’s the only one Pax can send to our camp. His threat to kill us and take everything was a bluff, because only Theron can survive our shield, and he’d be slaughtered on arrival.
We can’t expect Pax to trust that we’re giving half of everything. We’re getting off easier than I expected.
They caught us off guard. Theron never should have been able to get into our camp and escape with Ellison like he did. Next time, we’ll be ready.
8
“Only three of us survived. We are evacuating back to the mainland. Everything on our island is contaminated. Maintain a safe zone of at least four miles from the shoreline.” —Isaiah Grove, leader of Island Four
Five Years Ago
Pax
As a kid, I didn’t know it was a luxury to spend one weekend watching Formula One races in Monaco and the next skiing in Switzerland.
Getting dropped off by one of our drivers on airport tarmacs to board my family’s plane was routine. Just another way we got from here to there.
Seeing the Gulfstream through Hannah’s eyes, though, is special. I held out my hand to help her out of the back of the SUV, and since she stepped out, she’s just been looking at the plane, her gaze awestruck.
“That’s the plane.” She pinches her brows together as she studies it in the amber light of early evening. “Your parents’ airplane.”
I squeeze her hand. “Think of it like a really fast car, love. Are you afraid of flying?”
She shakes her head, looking slightly dazed. “No, it’s just ...”
“A lot. I get it.”
Her gaze slides to me and she smiles, her brown eyes warmer and more mesmerizing than the sunset we’ll soon be watching from the air. I had no idea, when I was drawn to a contagious, melodic laugh from a group of women at a bar I was out at with friends ten months ago, that the woman that laugh belonged to would change my life.
When I turned to see who it belonged to, our eyes locked, and I suddenly knew what people meant when they said when you meet the one, you’ll know.
Though I’d been hoping to get the new woman from HR at my Boston accounting firm to go home with me that night—after a bunch of us had drinks and she saw me crush some Bon Jovi songs for karaoke night—I changed my plans immediately.
Not just for the night. For my life. I pleaded with the universe for the stunning brunette I was approaching to be single and straight. That was all I needed. The rest I could handle.
And damn, did she make me work. She told me she could smell the playboy on me a mile away and placed me firmly in the friend zone. It took almost three months of groveling just to get a date with her.
In the bar that night, something made me introduce myself to her as Pax Stephens—my mother’s maiden name—instead of using my real last name. I needed to know if the third-grade teacher who made me forget any other woman had ever existed could fall for just me.
Not the killer Super Bowl seats, yacht trips, and luxury homes all over the world. The doors opened by my billionaire parents have made many women work to land my ring on their finger.
Hannah got to know a man who couldn’t always afford to go out on Friday and Saturday nights (a fib I hoped she’d forgive me for later). A man she thought was so buried in college loans that he walked most places because he didn’t have a car. (My cars stayed snugly parked in the garage beneath my downtown building while I racked up enough steps to take me to and from the moon. Probably.)
It was just a week ago that I admitted the truth to Hannah. Even then, I told her the money is all my mom and dad’s, and that they want me to make my own way in life. In reality, I’ll inherit half of everything someday. I was also privileged to be gifted stocks and trust funds by not just my parents, but also my grandparents, which have set me up for life even without my parents’ money.