Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
What happens when life just stops? When one moment makes you question your entire existence?
Scarlet Stone is a third-generation thief who has everything: a doting fiancé, a spacious London flat, and a legitimate job offer. In a single breath, everything becomes nothing, and she finds herself on a plane to Savannah, Georgia in search of the meaning of life.
After securing a six-month lease for a beachfront house on Tybee Island, Scarlet changes the way she looks, thinks, eats—basically her entire outlook on life. She needs peace, but what she gets is a housemate who looks like Thor, acts like a warden, and smells her proximity like a Bloodhound.
Theodore Reed is a carpenter and perfectionist with a body built of steel, a black, hollow heart, and a hunger for revenge. He doesn’t like company, girly-smelling crap, and British accents.
He resents every breath she takes.
She’s fascinated by his every move.
In time, they discover their coexistence is toxic, their physical attraction is electric, the secrets they keep mean the difference between life and death, and the only truth they share is that everything is a lie.
“Over eighty-five percent of the world's population believes in a higher power, yet, very few people believe in miracles.”
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Don’t wee your knickers.
The kids stare at me with their owl eyes as my knees wobble with each step.
Don’t wee your knickers.
The first day of school shouldn’t be this scary. The other kids have rucksacks with animated characters and glitter. I have a brown leather case with a four-digit lock code keeping my spiral notepad, three #2 pencils, a twelve pack of crayons, scissors, and my packed lunch safe. Oscar promised I would fit in fantastically on my first day of primary school.
I’ve already been asked nine times, “Why did you bring a suitcase to school?”
“It’s an attaché case that used to belong to a German diplomat. Oscar gave it to me,” I reply—nine times.
Once all eighteen children find a seat and the room is silent, we’re invited one at a time to share a bit about ourselves. I am the fourth to go and after bingeing on too many Jammie Dodgers and a liter of milk for breakfast, I feel ready to chunder.
I don’t. Instead, I answer the same basic questions that were shared before me. “Oscar is a locksmith, but he carries a gun because not everyone respects a good locksmith.” I pick at the dry skin on my lips while slowly twisting my body side to side, as everyone else stares at me. Their mouths hang open. Why do they look so surprised? His job is boring, not cool. The boy who spoke before me has a dad who drives a train. That’s cool.
I continue, “He’s my dad, but he told me to call him Oscar because I’m not a baby.” I ignore the whispers and continue. “My mum died from doctors poisoning her.”
The whispers stop, leaving seventeen pairs of wide eyes on me. Even my teacher looks like she ate something that’s ready to come back up her throat.
“Oh …” I continue, having forgotten the most important piece of information. “My dad calls me Ruby, but my name is Scarlet Stone.”
CHAPTER TWO
My name is Scarlet Stone, and I am a third-generation thief.
26 Years Later – High Security Prison – South East London
It’s possible hundreds of other men have worn my dad’s underwear. I’m here to say a final goodbye.
Make peace.
Close the door.
Yet the thought at the forefront of my mind is communal underwear. I overheard an inmate’s wife complaining about it at my last visit. She said her husband contracted a flesh-eating infection from the shared underwear.
It could have been me in communal underwear. It was my crime. For the rest of my days, that realization will always give me pause.
“I’m leaving London.” There. After practicing that line for forty-five minutes on the drive here, my brain and mouth cooperate. A miracle.
His chin juts forward, eyes unblinking.
My hand moves toward my mouth. At the last second I ball it into a fist then slip both of my hands under my legs. I stopped chewing my fingernails six years ago. No amount of nerves can convince me to start that nasty habit again, especially not within the confines of these four walls contaminated with flesh-eating bacteria.
“Why, Ruby? I don’t understand.” On the opposite side of the metal table, my dad clenches his intertwined fingers like it’s taking everything he has to keep his composure.
“I need out.” My teeth grind as I deny my need to break down and tell him the crux of my intentions. The dull pain in my chest bears down with each passing breath.
“What about Daniel?”
I shake my head. “We’re over.” Tears sting my eyes as I avert them to the black scuff marks on the concrete floor, blinking away the weakness.
My thoughts shift to the woman beside me, talking about Joey taking his first steps. Her flowery perfume overpowers the stale, musty stench. The door behind me buzzes as another visitor enters the room. I don’t know how my dad lives here. After a week, I would drown in thoughts of despair and suicide—and communal underwear.
“Ten more years. Seven with good behavior. Wait for me. You’re young. Don’t be rash.”
Drawing in a shaky breath, my gaze meets his. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”
It’s impossible to miss the flinch. Oscar Stone is as steely as his name implies, and like any good Brit, he’s perfected his stiff upper lip. But I am his weakness. I am the reason he is here.
“I’ll find you.”
My quivering lips deliver a less-than-believable smile. He won’t find me. No one will find me. The weight on my chest intensifies further. Oscar isn’t the best dad in the traditional sense, but he’s the best dad for me. There hasn’t been one day in my entire life that I haven’t felt like his whole world.
It’s time to say goodbye and the nod from the prison officer behind him confirms it.
“I love you, Oscar.”
He rubs a rough hand over his shaven head, blue eyes squinted, deepening the lines and wrinkles on his face. A lifetime etched into his flesh. I look nothing like Oscar. The only physical attribute I have to my Caucasian dad is my skin is brown not black like my mum’s. He used to tell me we were white chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. His word is all I have. I don’t remember my mum, but she was perfect. If I have to make up imaginary memories of my mum, they’re sure as hell going to be spectacular. In my mind, she was a goddess, a superhero—perfection.