Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
I know I can’t let Cassie be free of me for too long.
I can’t give her enough time to recover and start rebuilding her life without me. Selfishly, I don’t want her to know she can do that—just in case after all this, she decides she wants to.
Life without me isn’t an option, I’m afraid.
She may have been joking about the girlfriend prison, but I’m not unwilling to build a soundproof room—hell, a whole soundproof house—if I’m unable to convince her.
I didn’t go to those lengths before when I thought I’d lost my chance with her, but that was only because I didn’t know then what it was like to actually possess Cassie Pritchard. Now I do, and I won’t go back to a life without her.
Cassie will spend her life with me one way or the other, but I strongly prefer that she wants to. I can cage her and still make her need me, but I can’t force her to love me, and I’ve become quite addicted to that particular drug. I don’t want to live without it, but I won’t live without her.
There are cracks in our foundation now, but those can be reinforced. They have to be.
I know I only get one chance at fixing this, so I have to play it all just right. If I can’t reinforce the base of the structure, everything I build on it will eventually collapse.
So, I’ve called in reinforcements.
Nina doesn’t know that’s her purpose here, of course, but she’ll figure it out soon enough.
I told her to come just before sunset. I bet she thought that was romantic.
I told her not to tell anybody she was coming. I bet that reminded her of Tim when he was getting tired of one of his girlfriends.
That’s the thing Cassie doesn’t understand. I hurt her, but I was saving her then, too.
She wouldn’t have liked my brother. He would have helped himself to her body if she offered it, but he would never have seen her soul.
He didn’t see her the way I see her, and he never would have appreciated her for all she has to offer.
She was made for me, not him.
Nina knows she wasn’t made for me, but her preferred Walters brother is dead, and she wants to land one of them, so she shows up ready and willing to squeeze herself into whatever mold suits me.
Nina and I have never been overly friendly, so at the sight of the smile on her face as she walks around her car and heads down toward the lake, I know that even though she’s looking at me, it’s not really me she’s seeing.
And that’s fine.
I don’t need her to see me yet.
I give her what she’s really wanting—a little smile that will remind her of him—the same way I would give a fish a worm—impaled on a hook.
“Hey, you,” she says in that way of hers. Familiar and flirty. Casually enticing.
Doesn’t entice me, but she wants it to, so I let my smile widen a bit and let my gaze travel over her body. She wore snug denim shorts and a striped bikini top.
I told her to wear the bikini top. She’s a good listener.
That’s good to know. That suits my purposes well.
When my brother was alive and Nina was around all the time, I never paid enough attention to figure out how to manipulate her because I didn’t need to. I’m utilizing every trick I know to give myself a crash course now.
I mirror a look I’ve seen on my brother’s face before when he was flirting with her—one that says, damn, you look good—and then I turn away like he would too, and let her come to me.
She does.
“I love this shirt on you,” she says, but it’s just an excuse to touch me.
My gaze drifts to her hand on my arm, caressing my bicep as she looks up at me.
She’s a manipulator, too.
Cassie’s probably right about her. That post probably was meant to hurt her.
That makes me mad, but I trap the resulting burst of annoyance beneath the surface because that’s not the image I need her to see. I can’t be me right now. I need to be Tim long enough to reel her in—then I can take the mask off.
“Yeah. I like your shirt, too,” I joke, since she’s not wearing one.
She grins. “Hey, you know me. Always eager to please.”
Yeah, I bet.
She was profoundly unprepared for this expedition and thinks she already has her hooks in me, so she drops her hand and walks away now, giving me a chance to chase.
I’ve never tried dating seriously before Cassie, but if this is any indication of the mating dances people do, I couldn’t be less interested.
I don’t know why Tim enjoyed it so much that he couldn’t even stick to a single girl that he liked, but I never fully understood my brother. The twin connection must only be a thing when their brains are wired the same way, and ours definitely weren’t.