Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 547(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 365(@300wpm)
I smirked to hide the truth. “Vibe?”
“Heather’s teen speak rubs off on me sometimes.” He referred to his seventeen-year-old daughter.
“Well, there’s no vibe,” I lied outright.
“You sure?” The fucker eyed me knowingly.
I’d lied for a bloody living and yet Quinn McQuarrie could see right through me, and I knew it. “She’s our client. She lives here. She’s thirteen years my junior. Three reasons why if there is a ‘vibe,’ I’m ignoring it.”
“There’s definitely a vibe.”
“If you say vibe one more time …”
Quinn snorted and walked toward the house. “She’s back here at four so you might want to be done for the day by then if you’re avoiding the vibes.”
Aye, I’d make sure I was gone by four.
Despite wanting to avoid her, I couldn’t say I hadn’t indulged my curiosity a little. I’d known she was Tierney Silver of the Silver Hotel and Resort empire. I’d known she’d given up her fancy life in New York to buy a rundown guesthouse in the middle of fucking nowhere, bringing a spotlight to Leth Sholas that made me uncomfortable since I’d picked the middle of fucking nowhere to live for a reason.
What I hadn’t known until I’d dug a little deeper was that Tierney Silver hadn’t merely given up her rights to the hotel empire … she’d sold the twenty percent share in Silver Hotels that she’d inherited upon her parents’ deaths. She then donated all that money (more than $100,000,000) to multiple charities. It had been all over the news.
Why did a hotel empire princess donate her inheritance?
Why did she pick the middle of fucking nowhere to start over?
I didn’t like unknowns.
My very nature tempted me to get close to her if only to learn the answers to these questions.
However, the pull between us, that strange, heightened awareness that crackled in the air every time I looked at her, was enough to bury my curiosity.
I didn’t need nor want to be pulled into Tierney Silver’s orbit.
It was just asking for trouble, and I’d had enough of that for a lifetime.
Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I sent a quick text to Jay, a hacker friend and computer genius, asking her to do a quick check to make sure there was no trace of Cameron’s video online.
7. Tierney
Two days later, I’d just finished dinner when my phone rang.
I reluctantly turned it over to look at the screen, hoping it wasn’t another call from Hugh, hoping it might be London who’d texted back to promise she’d visit as soon as she’d saved enough for the flights. I’d offered to fly her over, knowing my prideful friend would say no and wishing for once she would say yes, but the restaurant kept her so busy. Still, London was the only family I had left, and I missed her more every day.
The call wasn’t from London. My pulse leapt at the sight of Perri’s name. Fumbling in my hurry, I dropped it and scrambled to pick it up.
“Hey!” I said, sounding out of breath.
“Hey, you okay?” Perri asked in husky, calm tones. From the moment Perri Wilcox contacted me, I’d found her voice soothing and her capable, take-charge demeanor reassuring.
“Fine. Just dropped my phone.”
“How goes it in Scotland?”
“It’s what I needed,” I answered honestly.
“I’m glad to hear that.”
I frowned, realizing the time difference. “Isn’t it like three or four in the morning there?”
“It’s after five. I have an early flight out.”
“So, do you have news?”
“I do.” Perri sighed. “It’s not exactly the news I was hoping to impart.”
“You met with Adila?”
“I did. She was very anxious and jittery and kept looking around, but I managed to get her to tell me that she has now accepted a settlement figure from the Silver Group. Signed off by Halston Cole.”
Disappointment crashed over me. “So she can’t talk to you.”
“Legally, she can’t go on record or that fucker could sue. I told her I could still quote her as an anonymous source, but Adila got very frightened. She thought someone in the restaurant was watching us, someone she recognized and thought was following her that morning. She left.”
“Shit, shit, shit.” I stood and kicked the bottom of the sofa, the dull pain not enough to satisfy the frustration raging through me.
“I got back to my hotel room and after I showered, I found a note shoved under the main door. It was typed—and it was a threat. It said I needed to get the hell out of Australia and to mind my own business or I would end up dead like my friend.”
She said it so matter-of-factly that it took a second for the threat to register.
“Perri …” My phone shook against my ear as my body trembled at the reminder of what happened to my parents and Perri’s colleague, Ben. “This isn’t worth your life. Maybe you need to stop.”