Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
He’d gotten her handbag for her, cursing himself for not realizing that her lips were chapped. Eventually, she’d come to him immediately when she needed something.
He knew she wasn’t used to having someone look out for her. Her mother certainly never had. Nor had Rick.
Harvey was going to have to come up with something to take care of that bastard. It wasn’t enough that his family was simply broke. It would be too easy for Rick to glom onto another rich heiress and milk her for her money.
He couldn’t believe he’d had to pretend to be friends with that asshole for the past year.
But that was the price of doing business sometimes.
Ronan had wanted him to get close to Rick after he’d attempted to use his sister as collateral for a gambling debt. Ronan hadn’t liked that. Especially considering that Rick’s father was a senator. And one whom Ronan had done business with occasionally. They’d found out more than they’d bargained for about Rick and his father.
None of it good.
Harvey had done his part. He’d stuck close to that asshole to see what he could find out. The only good thing about being near Rick was Lily.
He hadn’t been able to make any moves for a start, not wanting to rock the boat with Rick. He’d thought her loyalty would be to her fiancé before he’d figured out that Rick was a complete and utter prick. And that Lily was lost. She wasn’t cold or removed. She was something else entirely.
But he hadn’t realized that she’d been drugged. He thought that she’d pulled back from life because she couldn’t stand to live through it with Rick.
He hadn’t realized how bad things were for her until about a month ago, when he’d heard her mother talking to her like she was nothing.
His job for Ronan was done, and he was finally free to take her. He’d just needed the right moment.
Harvey wished that loyalty to the family wasn’t drummed so deeply inside him. Then he might have taken her earlier and saved her from some heartache.
But she was here now.
And he was going to make up for the delay by putting her first.
He intended to stay close, to touch her as often as he could, to look after her, to show her what it felt like to have someone take care of her.
He wanted to treat her like she was precious because that’s what she was.
Walking into his office, he called Paddy on his phone. Now that she was taking a nap, he could get some other things done. First on the list was to see if Paddy had found out anything about this doctor her mother had taken her to.
“Is that my big brother who has mysteriously disappeared but still likes to bark out orders and expects me to drop everything to help him?”
“I only ask you to help because you’re the best at what you do,” Harvey replied smoothly.
“You know just how to stroke my ego. Bet you know how to stroke other things as well since you’ve been alone so long.”
Harvey groaned. “Can we please not?”
“I’m just concerned for you. It’s not healthy to go without sex as long as you have. You’re a Gallagher. We need sex to keep our tempers under control.”
Harvey rolled his eyes. That was such bullshit. Sex had nothing to do with their tempers.
Yeah, the Gallagher men were known for their tempers and for their sex drive, but that didn’t mean they had to be defined by it. He wasn’t. He’d worked hard to keep his temper under control. And while he might have sowed a few wild oats in his earlier years, he wasn’t interested in that any longer.
He wanted something real. He wanted to build a life with someone. He didn’t want to just get off. It wasn’t about sex for him. It was about forever.
And that forever was going to be with Lily.
But Paddy didn’t have someone like that.
Maybe one day he would. Gallagher men were known to fall hard when they found ‘the one’.
“Harvey knew he was lucky because he’d found Lily. “Listen, I’m not interested in a quick fuck. I don’t need that to keep my temper under control. I already have good control.”
“Yeah, but don’t you need it just to wake up in the morning with a smile on your face?”
“I already do that. I don’t want something temporary. I’m building something that is going to be forever.”
“Yeah? You want to enlighten the rest of us what that is?”
He could, but he wasn’t ready to tell his family about Lily. For the moment, he just wanted to keep her to himself.
“All in good time, brother.”
“Does it have something to do with this doctor that I’m researching?”
“What have you found out about that doctor and that clinic?”
“I don’t know if I want to tell you, if you’re not going to tell me what’s going on.”