Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93929 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Now he says we’re getting married…
My employer Finn Whelan is dangerous. He’s all charming smiles and expensive suits, and there’s something vicious lurking under that beautiful exterior.
Most nights I’m left alone to clean his gorgeous apartment… at least until he catches me dripping wet and naked…
After one stupid, steamy mistake, I find out the real horror: he’s the youngest son of New York’s most ruthless criminal organization and our families arranged for us to get married.
And Finn knew from the start. That’s why he hired me… and why he’s been watching.
Now I’m walking down the aisle with a stalker psychopath, but it somehow gets worse.
On our wedding night, he offers the one sin I’ve wanted my whole life: Help me kill your father. Help me destroy your brothers. And when it’s over, I’ll set you free.
The sick part is, I might say yes… because he’s the only man alive who understands what I’ve been through.
But as I sleep in the monster’s bed… I might be falling for my own ruin.
Arranged Scars is a full-length dark mafia romance featuring an arranged marriage, shared trauma, morally gray characters, and revenge so sweet it burns
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
1
CAROLINE
I’m going skinny dipping in my boss’s pool.
The night sky is dotted with stars. I stare at them through the glass of his heated luxury enclosure at the top of an enormous tower in the middle of Tribeca. Lights bend and flicker in the gorgeous pool, and I’m practically squirming with excitement as I make sure his private sauna is hot and ready.
I probably shouldn’t do this.
But I’ve gotten away with it every night for the past week and at this point I’m basically addicted.
What’s better than a sauna and a swim at the top of a beautiful high-rise tower? Especially in the middle of the night when there’s nobody else around.
Besides, I earned this. I just spent the last two hours scrubbing his entire lavish apartment all by myself. Even though it looks like nobody lives in this place, I still make sure it’s completely spotless. I polish doorknobs and take a toothbrush to his shower grout, for frick’s sake. I’m practically owed some relaxation.
I mean, I’m not really. My boss pays extremely well. Like an obscene amount of money. All I need to do is never speak of this arrangement at all.
I was skeptical at first. I’ve been cobbling together a living for the past couple years, and when a hiring company came to me with this offer out of the blue, I thought they were scamming. Why would some rich guy want me to clean his apartment in the middle of the night? I’ve done some cleaning gigs, but I’m not exactly good at it.
But then the recruiter started talking numbers… and I was more than a little interested.
Which is how I find myself stripping down in a stranger’s pool area. I squint through the glass and I’m pretty sure that if there’s someone living at the top of the next tower over, and if they owned a sufficiently powerful telescope or a really good pair of binoculars, they’d be able to see the fine downy blonde hair on my tan arms and my auburn-colored pubes. But hey, go for it, take a look. Nobody else is. Enjoy the view. Someone might as well.
I sigh and sink down into the hot sauna. This place feels so good. I really resisted using these facilities at first, but when I realized my boss is absolutely never home when I come to clean, my resolve slipped. I mean, he won’t notice, right? Not if I bring my own towel and clean up after myself. Which is easy, since that’s my job.
Sweat beads on my brow. I tie my hair back and close my eyes, stretching my legs. This is my heaven, right here. When I die, I hope they have saunas in the afterlife. I’ll be kind of pissed if they don’t. Who knew the Scandinavians were right all along?
It’s hard not to let my mind wander. I have the tendency to focus on the creepy side of life. Like for example: Did you know that every year approximately 600,000 people are reported missing? Most of those cases are resolved, but what about the cases that aren’t? I’m fascinated by that gap. Or how in New York, if you’re murdered, there’s a 50:50 chance your killer will get caught at best? And even less likely if you’re black or brown? Pretty good odds for all the serial killers out there. Even creepier: every year, over 4,000 bodies are recovered but never identified. Who are those people?
It can be a little unsettling, living inside my head.
Which is why I should probably be more careful about stripping naked in a total stranger’s apartment.
I don’t even know the guy. I met him exactly once. I call him Finn, no surname. Every night there’s an envelope containing cash on the nightstand beside his bed. There’s nothing personal in his place, or at least nothing that I’ve seen. I don’t snoop. I have some ethics, after all.
But I didn’t get a warm-and-fuzzy feeling from the guy. Not even a little bit. He smiled, even seemed charming, but there was nothing kind behind his smile. He’s handsome, incredibly good-looking to be honest, almost to the point that I couldn’t look him in the eye without my heart racing.
I still wouldn’t want to be alone in a room with him. Not for very long, anyway.
I grew up with men like him. Men who look normal on the outside, maybe even beautiful, but are rotten deep down. I’ve learned to recognize them. It’s in the way they treat the world around them. Like they’re surrounded by toys and they don’t care what they break.
Finn seriously scares me. But because I’m deeply flawed and broken, I can’t stop thinking about him.
Why would a guy like that pay me so much money to clean his boring apartment? The place is gorgeous, don’t get me wrong, but there’s zero character. What’s the point of all this?