Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73462 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
But tonight?
I cleaned it up.
The bus station is forty minutes away. I’ll walk until I’m close enough to hitch a ride. I memorized the bus schedule. Two routes run west by morning. I don’t care which one I take as long as it gets me far from here.
I keep walking. Past the twisted mailbox he never fixed. Past the sagging fence and rusted gate.
I did it.
The realization doesn’t hit all at once.
It comes in pieces. In the silence. In the scent of gasoline on the road.
In the absence of his voice in my head, mocking me, directing me, punishing me.
No more. He took something precious from me, and I’m done.
He’s gone.
And I’m not broken.
Not anymore.
I walk until the sky starts to gray. Until the outline of civilization begins to appear—billboards and storefronts.
I duck into a gas station. The clerk barely looks up. Just as well. I head for the bathroom and change my clothes—jeans, hoodie, and a baseball cap pulled low. I cut my sandy brown hair short a few days ago. I’ll color it black—I’ve always wanted black hair with blue tips—as soon as I can.
It’s over.
Though I feel something weighing me down.
Not guilt. Hell, no.
Certainly not sorrow.
Something else. Like an echo. Like silence that hasn’t settled yet.
By the time I reach the bus station, the sun is rising.
I sit near the back of the waiting area, slouched low, hood up. The ticket machine is broken, so I pay cash at the counter and avoid eye contact with the woman behind the glass. She doesn’t ask questions. Just hands me my change and a one-way ticket west.
California, here I fucking come.
I board the bus, take a window seat, and pull my legs up beneath me. A few other passengers trickle in—a mom with a toddler, a guy in a business suit, a teenager who looks like he hasn’t slept in three days. None of them look at me twice.
Perfect.
As the bus pulls away, I finally relax. The landscape blurs past.
I close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t come.
Instead, I think about the sound his skull made when I hit him. About the way the blood soaked into his pillow. About the way he didn’t beg.
He didn’t have time.
He always told me I was weak. Useless. A blob of nothing that no one wanted.
I’m none of those things now.
I trained for this. Not with weapons or knives, but with silence. With endurance. With the kind of patience it takes to smile at your abuser while you memorize the creak of every floorboard in the house.
That kind of training stays in your bones.
I rest my head against the window.
The ache in my shoulder reminds me of the tattoo.
A viper, coiled and poised. It’s not just a symbol. It’s a warning. To others.
To me.
I won’t let anyone close enough to hurt me again. Not that way. Not ever.
And if they try?
I won’t wait for nightfall next time.
I won’t wait at all.
Present Day…
I’ve gone soft.
I’ve gone and developed feelings for that shithead rock star. Sure, I was infatuated with him when I followed him around Europe. I love his music, his gravelly voice, his charismatic stage presence.
Plus…getting out of the US for a year sure didn’t hurt at the time.
Funny.
I haven’t thought of my past much.
Sometimes it seems like a bad dream. Even a bad dream inside of a bad dream.
I’ve made a good life in Pasadena, put myself through beauty school, got a position at an exclusive salon. I’ve dated off and on, both men and women. Never got serious, though. That’s not in the cards for me.
Am I here to snag a billionaire?
Damned right, I am.
Did I come here to fall in love?
God, no.
Do I need access to billions?
I do.
I fucking do.
Sebastian fucking Tate.
He may not know it yet, but he’s in love with Emily.
As for me?
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything. That was the plan. Get in, get what I need, get out. No distractions. No heartstrings. Just strategy and timing and a flawless execution.
But here I am.
Walking into the mansion and feeling…
Shit I never wanted to feel.
And the kicker?
I’m feeling it for someone who’s in love with someone else.
This was supposed to be simple.
Charm a billionaire. Keep him close enough to manipulate, far away enough not to feel anything.
I keep telling myself it’s not real. That it’s part of the game, just adrenaline and proximity and the heat of pretending.
Feelings lie.
Affection is a liability.
Love—if that’s even what this is—will wreck everything I’ve worked for.
And still…
I can’t stop thinking of how his mouth feels on mine.
How he feels inside me.
How I ache in places I thought I’d buried long ago.
Only one thing to do.
Stay far away from Sebastian Tate.
But how the hell am I supposed to do that when we’re living in the same mansion?
I could leave.
Pull a Ginger and Rachel and get the hell out of here.