Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 648(@200wpm)___ 519(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“See this?” I snarled, my finger dripping blood all over the floor. “This is what happened to the last person who fucked with Tiernan Callaghan.”
The image was readily available on the internet from a news piece I’d read earlier. The man had been chopped up and scattered on tree branches.
Gia stopped struggling to free herself, sucking in a surprised breath.
“Now, if I let go, will you run?” I croaked into her ear.
Goose bumps pebbled her skin. Christ, she was responsive. I wanted to offer her something obscene to lie down and open those legs for me.
But Gia was the only woman I knew whose affection could not be bought. The math equation I had yet to solve.
She was silent for a beat before murmuring, “Probably. Better you keep me constrained for this conversation. Not that the outcome will change.”
She wanted more of my touch.
I closed my eyes, breathing her in. Her Tom Ford perfume and a concoction of body oils she put on every night before bed.
“Callaghan wants my throat,” I reiterated.
“So does the rest of the world, I’m sure,” she sighed. “What did you do now?”
“Not important. What’s important is that you’re an extension of me now, whether you like it or not. If they catch you, they will kidnap you, rape you, sever pieces of your body, before I’ll have to pay a hefty amount of ransom to get you back. You don’t want that.”
“There are a lot of things I don’t want,” she spat out, her ass inadvertently wiggling against my cock again. “You’re at the top of that list, by the way. Being followed around by musclemen is a close second. If they come for me, I’ll handle it. I won’t live like a prisoner. Let me go.”
“No.”
She elbowed my ribs, which hardly left a dent, but raising her heeled foot and jamming it against my shin did the trick. I released her on instinct. She grabbed her purse and supermarket bag, stomping to the door.
“No bodyguards.” She pointed at me in warning. “If they chop off a few of my limbs, you’ll only have yourself to blame. Next time, don’t mess with the Irish Mafia, Tate.”
“You’re being ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful?” she choked out, enraged. “The Mafia is after me because of you.”
“And I’m pulling all my resources to protect you from them. Really, you should be on your knees servicing me for taking such good care of you.” I lost the last morsel of patience I had for this woman. “No man I know would hire an entire SWAT team to protect a fiancée who hates him.”
“No bodyguards,” she repeated stubbornly, peering between the door and me.
“You walk out that fucking door,” I warned, “and I’m sending both you and your mother back to Britain.”
With a groan of frustration, she breezed toward her bedroom, crashing her bag against my shoulder on her way there. I followed her, tapping at my side furiously.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
Two, six, two.
I didn’t fucking care if she noticed anymore. She’d find out sooner or later.
“If they chop off your good parts and send them to me in the mail, I’m not going to pay ransom to retrieve you,” I needled as I stalked her to her room.
“Good!” She slammed the door in my face, shouting through the wooden barrier. “Losing a few fingers is a small price to pay to relieve myself of you.”
“You will never be relieved of me,” I said to the door.
Since when did I speak to fucking inanimate objects? I hadn’t let anyone treat me this way, not since Andrin.
This transaction was taking on a bizarre path, and I was going to put a stop to this chaos.
I tapped the side of my thigh furiously, numbers and variables swimming in my head. “I will chase you to the end of the earth and beyond. No force in the world can keep me from you. I have earned your company fairly. The sooner you accept there is no way out of this arrangement, the better.”
No answer.
She had won this round. Forcing her into walking around with security would push her over the edge, and I wanted to lure her back into the safe zone. To the place where she’d let her guard down, open her legs for me, and give me what she owed me—offspring. A family. An heir.
“They’ll kill you.” I drove my fist to the door, cracking it.
“Sounds like a plan. If I die, you’re not invited to the funeral.”
My jet was fueled and ready to take off in forty minutes for Europe, and I was standing here bickering with a woman nine years my junior, trying to convince her not to get murdered.
“I’ll be gone for less than forty hours.” I braced my elbows on either side of her door. “You’re not to move out of this fucking apartment until I’m back. I’ll be here Thursday, by three p.m. I’ll expect you to be waiting for me in a wedding gown and with a much better attitude. Is that clear?”