Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
I move to stand on the opposite side of the table. “Tell me what you need me to do and I’ll do it.” The smile Lilian gives me is worth every insufferable moment I’ll have to endure with my brother in order to be with her. I want Lilian, and I’m going to prove it to her.
TEN
LILIAN
The next day, Drew drops off a couple more laptops and phones for us. The past twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind of ups and downs, but it appears Arson and Aries have come to an easy truce…or maybe a better word would be an uneasy truce. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t expect them to always get along or to let go of what happened. I know there are unresolved issues and trauma there, but it makes me feel better that they want to put their differences aside, at least for me. After spending a good portion of the day reading over reports. Any mention of the names Arson gave me. Of reports related to Hayes Enterprises, and of the Medical Research Division looking for any inclination or hidden meaning, and very quickly, I want to claw my own eyes out.
Aries approaches me with a smile while I’m sitting at the small kitchenette table. I’m finally in my own clothes, and he is, too. It might seem strange to comment on, but there’s so much comfort in a little bit of normalcy, especially when everything has been far from normal. I wonder if it feels weird to him? To return to his old life, but be a completely different person.
“Hey, you.” I greet him with a smile. He doesn’t greet me with a hello. Instead, he bends down and scoops me up into his arms like I weigh nothing. For someone who’s spent months in captivity, his strength is surprising—his muscles may have atrophied, but the core power is still there, coiled and ready to be unleashed.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my hands automatically finding purchase around his neck.
“We need to talk,” he says, voice low and determined. “Alone.”
Arson stands at the opening of the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He shoves off the wall, his posture shifting from casual to threatening in the blink of an eye. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”
I hold up a hand to stop him. “Relax. It’s fine.”
“The hell it is,” Arson growls, eyes locked on his twin. “I’m not letting him take you anywhere alone.”
Aries’s entire body tenses, his arms tightening around me to the point of discomfort.
“I’m not going to hurt her,” he spits out, the words practically vibrating with rage.
The anger in him is so close to the surface these days, bubbling just beneath his skin like lava ready to erupt. It’s nothing like the controlled, measured Aries I grew up with—the perfect Hayes heir who never raised his voice, never lost his cool, never showed anything but calculated charm. That was the man I fell for, but this new Aries makes me crave him even more. He’s raw and exposed, his emotions no longer buried beneath layers of conditioning.
It’s terrifying, but if I’m being honest with myself, it’s also a little thrilling.
“It’s okay,” I tell Arson, trying to defuse the situation before it explodes again. “Give us a few minutes. I’m serious. You don’t get to decide when I spend time with him or you. You both know the rules.”
The way Arson clenches his jaw proves how unhappy he is with the arrangement, but he takes a reluctant step back. The three of us are tensed in a triangle of tension so thick I could cut it with a knife.
“The bedroom,” I tell Aries, pointing toward the hall.
Arson’s expression darkens further, but he says nothing as Aries brushes past him, carrying me out of the room. I can feel him following a few steps behind, his presence like a shadow at our backs. He pauses just outside the door, and Aries, balancing on one foot, pushes it closed. The bedroom remains unchanged from the day before. However, clothing and other items are scattered around the makeshift space. Aries sets me down on the edge of the bed with surprising gentleness, then straightens, looming over me with an unreadable expression.
I take a moment to really look at him, to catalog the changes captivity has wrought. He’s thinner, yes, the sharp angles of his face more pronounced, but it’s the change in his eyes that really strikes me. There’s a hardness there that wasn’t present before, a wariness that makes him look older than his twenty-six years. The polished veneer of the Hayes heir has been stripped away, revealing something more raw and authentic beneath.
“Don’t even think about it,” I tell him when he stalks forward, flames of desire flickering in his hazel eyes.