Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 30269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 30269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 151(@200wpm)___ 121(@250wpm)___ 101(@300wpm)
For a while we drink our coffee in comfortable quiet. Steam curls off my mug. Gray light pools across the marble. Hugo tries to meet my eyes but fails, and something about that puts me on alert.
“We’ve been summoned to the penthouse,” he says.
The mug stalls at my lips.
Summoned.
The last time that word found me at a breakfast table, Oliver was dabbing yogurt from the corner of my mouth. An hour later, I stood in the dungeon.
No, this is different.
Hugo didn’t say the dungeon.
“When?” I set the mug down before my hand betrays me.
“As soon as you’re ready to go.”
It’s all I can do to keep from scoffing. “Do you know why?”
“I imagine it has something to do with the auction.”
Allies in a penthouse, not wolves in a dungeon.
I finish my coffee while Hugo wipes down a counter that doesn’t need it, and the easy spell of the morning thins by the second.
“I’ll go get ready.” I slide off the stool.
“Take your time.”
Nervous energy buzzes through my veins as I head back to my suite. The strong coffee would be easy to blame, but this is more than over-caffeinated jitters. A private meeting with the men who know me best waits at the top of the tower, with no large dinner or polite small talk to hide behind.
Out of all of them, Liam and I share the deepest bond, and it’s a miracle he didn’t catch on yesterday in the library. Landon and I aren’t close, but he still shares my DNA. Vance, I count as a friend. And then there’s Ford…
Pain pricks at my eyes. The last time I saw him, he was just as much a mess as I was…right before I tried to jump off a cliff.
Unbreakable connections, every one of them—and I’m about to walk into a room to talk secret plans while keeping the biggest secret of all.
In the wardrobe, I reach for a blue dress suitable for winter, a modest cut buttoned high to the throat with a hem that swishes around my ankles. My style has always leaned feminine, but today, I use those buttons as armor.
Squaring my shoulders, I leave my quarters and find Hugo in the sitting room. The sight of him brings me up short, because he looks nothing like the man I shared sugary cereal with for breakfast. The flannel and glasses are gone, his messy hair combed into order, lounging clothes traded for a severe suit the color of midnight.
“Ready to go?” he asks, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“As ready as I can be.”
We ride up to the penthouse in companionable silence, something I wouldn’t have thought possible before his nightmare or our shared breakfast. For some reason, his presence calms me.
Once we reach Liam’s double-doored entrance, Hugo raps his knuckles three times on the heavy wood. A full minute passes with no answer.
I glance at Hugo.
He only shrugs, eyes focused straight ahead.
Tamping down impatience, I reach for the handle and turn.
Unlocked.
We slip inside to a murmur of voices coming from the direction of Liam’s office. A short trip down the hall, and they grow louder, filtering through the door left ajar.
Hugo says nothing as I blatantly eavesdrop.
“I’ve made myself invaluable to Jerome. I’ve got the files you need.”
That’s Oliver.
Panic grabs me until Jerome’s name sinks in, because this isn’t about the auction.
Landon’s keeping his word, dismantling the man who hurt Elise, piece by piece. After everything she’s survived, she’s finally getting justice.
Then Oliver speaks again, and the hope drains out of me.
“And if you want my vote and my help, then I want this.” A pause that seems to drag on endlessly, and then, “I understand your feelings for the queen, Chancellor, but Landon’s already agreed.”
The more they say, the more the floor tilts under me. They’re discussing the plan to rig the auction…
And Oliver knows.
They brought him in.
The plan Landon swore he’d keep buried, handed over without a second thought. If only he had come to me first, I could have told—
I wouldn’t have told Landon a damn thing.
Sebastian trusts me. His life depends on me staying quiet about this, even though my instincts want me to scream the truth into that room.
Sebastian’s alive, and I’m marrying him!
But here I am, forced into another corner, hands tied.
My hands are tired of being tied.
I barge in, door banging against the wall to announce my arrival. Two brown gazes and my brother’s green stare back at me.
“And what is it, exactly, that Oliver wants?” Planting my hands on my hips, I scowl at all three of them before zeroing in on the man in question. “Someone better start talking.”
10
After ten months in this tower, I’ve learned to read a loaded silence like a second language. Leaving Hugo standing near the door, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere else, I face down the rest of them as toxic energy buzzes between us. Despite my demand for an explanation, no one offers one. It would be a moot point anyway, because the guilt on their faces is answer enough.