Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Getting home to my building, I run upstairs as fast as I can, taking the external stairwell and avoiding the elevator. When I moved into this place I was so excited that there was an elevator, but it almost never works, and when it does it has a tendency to get stuck. It happens so much there’s a phone tree taped to the inside so one of us can go out with a crowbar and wedge the doors open for one of our neighbors if need be.
I sweat my way up five flights of stairs, cursing my decision to get an apartment so high up. It’s top floor, which at the time made me feel fancy, but now I just have aching thighs after all that working out.
I push the door to my apartment open and throw my bag down by the door.
“Fuck,” I curse as I trip over my bag immediately.
The door closes behind me slowly.
The hair rises on the back of my neck as it occurs to me that my door was unlocked when I got here, and someone just closed the door too.
I turn around to see a man standing in my apartment. He makes my cozy little home look like a hovel. He is tall, well over six feet. He has dark hair with a slight wave, and the most elegant yet masculine features I have ever seen on a man. He is wearing a cream suit that suits his olive skin. It looks expensive. He’s wearing a watch, which also looks expensive.
He doesn’t belong here. He must be at least in his mid-thirties. I’m twenty-two. Guys his age hit on me at bars sometimes, but not men with his obvious financial advantages. I stare at him in a kind of shock. He’s so gorgeous. What the hell is he doing here?
Something in my bedroom falls over. I hear a thud and then a shuffling of feet.
“She has so much crap in here!” a male voice curses, annoyed.
“What is going on?” The annoyance at realizing my personal space is being well and truly torn apart prompts the question.
There’s something familiar about this man. Something… like I know him? But I have definitely never been in his presence before, that’s for absolute certain.
He smirks at me, but his eyes narrow just a fraction like he registered my sass and didn’t entirely appreciate it. I feel a pang in my stomach, like I am in trouble because I’ve done something wrong.
Another man comes storming out of the bedroom. “I didn’t find anything, but that doesn’t mean… Oh, she’s here.” His tone suggests I am late as well.
This guy is beautiful too. Is there a male model convention in my apartment that I didn’t know about? He has similar skin, a little lighter. His eyes are blue and his features are bolder than the first man who is leaning up against my bookcase.
I look back at the first guy because he seems to be in charge. He has deep brown soulful eyes and a restrained demeanor. I know instantly that he is the leader of whatever is going on here, and maybe of much more. He looks at me with a softly penetrating stare that is more frightening than the curt annoyance of the blond.
“Take a seat,” the tall, dark-haired man says, pressing the lock on my door as he steps toward me, ushering me toward my pink armchair that I found on the side of the street and pushed into the elevator on a day when that was working.
“This is my place,” I say weakly. I’ve never practiced telling strange hot men to get out of my house, and it seems like I’m not about to start now. These two are so captivating I find myself just staring rather than defending.
The leader puts his hands in his pockets and speaks to me in a clear, somewhat patient tone.
“Did you have anything to do with the passing of Theodore Levin?”
“No,” I say. “Of course not. I’ve never had anything to do with anyone’s passing.”
He looks through me. I swear to god he sees the inside of me, parts and places that are usually obscured to everyone including me.
“You have secrets,” he says softly. Everything about this man could be mistaken for gentleness, but that is precisely what it would be—a mistake. Every time he pushes into me, he shows me something of what he is. I feel coldness. I feel cruelty. I feel a capacity for dizzying violence.
But right now he is wearing a cream suit and giving me a faint smile that sits on just the wrong side of reassuring.
“Everyone has secrets. Mine aren’t murder,” I say, shivering against cold that isn’t there. “Please let me go. I swear I don’t know anything about this.”
“You knew Theodore.”
“I really don’t think I did.”