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)
“My other sister, Fiadh, loves plants. She’s given me a number of house plants over the years that I’m expected to take care of. Bea was also watering the plants for me. The worms don’t need much. They get fed every five to seven days.”
“So, you didn’t have your alarm on because of Bea?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just give her the code?”
“I would if Bea could remember a code to save herself. I can’t tell you how many times she set off my alarm from getting the code wrong. I thought it was better just to leave it off. Nothing ever happens in my neighborhood. Turns out that was a stupid decision. Ronan is not happy that Bea was anywhere near my house when it was being trashed.”
“But you didn’t know that would happen,” she said. “And the burglar wasn’t still there, right?”
“No, but he still could have been, and Bea could have gotten hurt, especially as she took a look at my broken door and decided to walk into the house rather than walking away."
Lily winced. “Wow, that seems like a really silly decision.”
“Just so you know, if you did something like that your ass would be hot for hours.”
And there he went, making threats that sent her body into a tailspin. She tried hard to keep her face from showing any reaction, though.
“I’m also fairly certain you wouldn’t do anything like that, would you?”
Lily thought it prudent to nod. She was pretty certain she wouldn’t walk into a house that had just been burgled.
“Unfortunately, Ronan is incredibly protective of my sisters, but at the same time, he also spoils them to death. So they think that nothing bad is ever going to happen because he will take care of everything, which he will, but they still have to take a certain amount of responsibility for keeping themselves safe. He also won’t hear of them being scolded.”
Wow.
She wondered what it would be like to have an older brother like that.
“Did you call the police? What did they say?”
He shook his head. “No cops. There is nothing that they could do that Ronan’s guys can’t.”
Who were Ronan’s guys? And what were they going to do?
“I can see the questions swirling in your head.” He grinned. “I will tell you, just not now. Because we have a mess to clean up and you need to have a shower.”
She looked down at herself. Eek!
“Um, leave everything for me. I’ll clean it up after my shower.”
He just shot her a look that she was pretty certain meant that wasn’t going to happen.
Well, she’d just have to be quick with that shower.
25
Lily stared down at the second half of her grilled cheese.
She didn’t really have to eat all of it, right?
Harvey picked up the sandwich and held it to her mouth. “Open up.”
Before coming here she’d have never imagined eating dinner at a kitchen island.
Dinner was always extremely formal, eaten at the dining table and would never be just grilled cheese. Her mother would die of horror if she was served up grilled cheese for dinner.
“I can feed myself,” she told him, feeling a blush of embarrassment fill her face.
“But will you?” he said. “Because it didn’t look like you were going to pick up the other half and eat it.”
Urgh. Drat. He wasn’t wrong.
“I’m really not that hungry.”
“Baby, you ate the equivalent of one piece of bread and two slices of cheese, if that. It’s not enough. I know you’ve barely eaten all day. Do you want me to do a choo-choo train or something?” He grinned at her.
Good Lord. She rolled her eyes at him, shaking her head, and reached for the sandwich, taking it from him so she could feed herself.
The man was out of control.
“We’re going to get you back into fighting form, baby, even if I have to feed you every meal myself.”
“You don’t have time for that. What about your job? Shouldn’t you be getting back to it?”
He shrugged. “I’m my own boss, so I gave myself some time off. And my assistant is happy. She’s currently sunning herself on an island in Fiji. She’d be mad if I made her come back early.”
“Oh, wow. That does sound nice,” she said. “I’ve never been out of the country.”
“Really? Not even when you were a kid?”
“No. I don’t think my mother liked to travel much. She’d send us to Grandma June’s, but I never really liked it there. I found the whole thing overwhelming. I didn’t know the rules of Grandma June’s place. I knew the rules back home, what Mother expected of us, and I was good at playing the game so she wouldn’t get mad at me.” She shook her head at the memories. “Clem wasn’t good at playing the game. I tried to do what I could to keep Mother’s attention on me. I even tried to get Mother to leave me at home and just send Clem because I knew how much she loved it there. I just didn’t fit in. Mother always went on about how it was a depraved place filled with people doing terrible things, but I don’t understand what she meant.”