Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
“Can you just let her go back home?” I ask.
“Yeah. When I’m good and ready to.”
“I meant now.”
“Oh. Then, no.”
I sigh, absently hugging myself. “Is she—?”
Killian seldom interrupts me, but he does this time. “I don’t want to talk about her anymore. I told you I’d handle it. You knew I’d do it the way I saw fit. Now the score’s been settled to my satisfaction. He’ll hold her for a couple of days, then he’ll take her back home. She’ll be fine. You were fine, weren’t you? She wasn’t worried about you.”
It’s definitely strange to be talking about my sister’s kidnapping that I know he coordinated, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t want her to be kidnapped, but I know there’s little use arguing with him about it.
That’s so fucked up.
These are extremely depraved circumstances to be seeing him under, but I guess when aren’t the circumstances depraved with us?
I swallow. “I texted you. When you didn’t answer, I got worried.”
A glint comes into his pretty blue eyes and he doesn’t bother to hide his smirk. “Oh, yeah?”
I sigh with annoyance, but I can’t entirely stifle my smile. “You didn’t text me yesterday either, so I thought… maybe something happened.”
“I didn’t take my phone with me. I had a burner, but I left my actual phone home so I couldn’t be traced to your hometown when I had no reason to be there and a crime connected to you was going down. They can check that, see if your phone pings on the local towers. Not that I plan to get caught, but…”
“Got it.”
He nods, his gaze drifting to my lips and unleashing a swarm of butterflies in my stomach.
Absently grabbing my bag’s shoulder strap, I tell him, “Well, I was just about to leave. I have a final, so…”
“Wouldn’t want you to be late for that.”
I shake my head.
I hate this, and I love it at the same time.
I love him being in my apartment. I hate feeling… everything I’m feeling.
I need a constant supply of Tums when I’m around this man, I swear.
Killian walks me out and checks to make sure the door is locked behind us, then he walks me to my car.
I slide in and look up at him, and my stupid heart memorizes the way he looks looking down at me.
“Goodbye, Killian,” I say softly.
He doesn’t say it back, just watches me pull my door closed and settle my bag in the seat next to me.
Finally, he turns and walks back to his own car.
He backs down the road enough for me to pull out and leave ahead of him. I keep an eye on the rearview mirror since he’s following me, but at a certain point, he turns and goes his own way.
It makes me immeasurably sad.
Because I wish I could go wherever he’s going, always.
But I can’t.
And that’s just the way it is.
Chapter Forty-six
Brynn
I was excited about the masquerade ball when Aiden first told me about it.
After he bought my dress and shoes, I went online and ordered this cute little purse just for the event. It’s small with a silver handle and trim, but the exterior of the bag is satin twisted and bunched to look like roses covering it.
It’s perfect.
And I’ll need a purse so I can take emergency money and my keys, the lipstick I’m wearing tonight in case I need touch-ups.
My excitement has ebbed, though. It has mostly turned to sludgy dread that settles in my gut and makes me feel terrible while I’m waiting for Aiden to pick me up.
And then the moment comes.
I grab my phone and purse. I still keep my phone out for now in case it’s a kidnapping, though Addison assured me the ball itself isn’t a decoy and there really is a Blue Blood Ball.
She agrees that I definitely should not be going to it, though.
When I get my first sight of Aiden, I can admit he looks very handsome.
His black hair is slicked back and he’s wearing a well-tailored blood red velvet tuxedo jacket with a black shirt underneath. He’s wearing black slacks and loafers, and even his cuff links are onyx.
“You look very nice,” I tell him politely.
He cracks a smile as he looks me over. “And you look absolutely perfect.”
When I was getting ready, something about the dress reminded me of Christine Daaé. Maybe the off-the-shoulder piece. Since I dressed as her the night we all met and this is my personal farewell to the entire Blue Blood scene, I thought it poetic to style my hair the way she did during Don Juan Triumphant—the point of no return. I pinned back a bit of hair on the left side and secured it with a red rose clip. Having a rose in my hair matches my bag, and though I typically don’t, I went with a red lip, too.