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)
I do, but a chill settles over me and I hug myself as I turn to face him.
Killian grabs a clean T-shirt hanging in the little nook behind him, then he hands it to me.
“Thank you,” I say softly before pulling it on. As I pull my hair out of the back, I look at him seriously. “You think he’d… hurt me?”
“Yes,” he says without hesitation. “I can think of multiple ways he would deal with you, and each one makes me sicker than the last, so… I need to put you somewhere he won’t be able to get to you. Somewhere I can keep an eye on you while I get everything settled.”
I swallow. I don’t want to be set up in a separate residence like a mistress. I’m feeling enough like one right now, and that just feels like… it feels like giving in to it.
It will kill me to live like that.
But I suppose Hex might actually kill me, so I should probably listen. “All right. If that’s what you think needs to happen.”
“I’m sorry you have to move again, but I’d really like this to be the last time. You’ll like the building, and I think you’ll love the apartment. Silvan and Sophie live there, so maybe we could hang out with them from time to time.”
“She wouldn’t find that weird when you’re engaged to someone else?”
He shakes his head. “Sophie doesn’t know anything about that. She’s not the most social person, so we haven’t really hung out, and Silvan keeps all our Blue Blood business away from her. I think having to deal with his dad is enough for her. Anything more might scare her off,” he adds with a faint smile.
So he wants to set me up in an apartment he’s paying for near his friend whose girlfriend doesn’t know he’s engaged and therefore would never question us being together there.
“You’re trying to make me your mistress,” I state.
“I am not trying to make you my mistress.”
“I’ve read regency romance novels, Killian. I know what mistress life looks like. All you need to do is buy me some jewelry and I’ll have the whole starter kit.”
“My priority is keeping you safe. I really don’t give a fuck how it looks to anyone else. All I know is I’d never forgive myself if I failed to protect you, and then Hex got to you because I left him an opening. Silvan can help me keep you safe, even from Hex, because of who his dad is, so I’m moving you into his building. I’d like you to agree to it, but you’re moving in either way.”
“Well, with options like those…”
“It’s the best way I know to keep you safe,” he states. “My apartment isn’t going to cut it. It’s not secure enough, and…”
He doesn’t say it, but I finish for him. “It’s Sloane’s dad’s property.”
He nods wordlessly.
“Hex likes Sloane more than me.”
“He doesn’t like her more, he just considers her more of an advantage. It doesn’t matter what he thinks I should do, anyway. I just need to make sure he can’t interfere.”
My lips tug up faintly, but without humor. “Is this the cage you were referring to last night?”
“No. That… I didn’t mean to say that, but you made me crazy. Just think of this as a pretty new home.”
“With bars on the windows,” I say dryly.
“To keep the threats out, not to keep you in. Totally not a cage.”
“Where you have free access to me anytime you want, and I have no power to turn you away because I’m completely reliant on you for every aspect of my survival. Kinda sounds like me being your pet, Killian.”
The smug bastard locks his arms around my waist and looks down at me, barely able to contain his pleasure at the prospect of having me so thoroughly locked down. “I did tell you I wanted free access.”
“And I told you how to get it, but you’re still engaged to Sloane—and getting everything you want, regardless.”
“I’m working on that,” he tells me.
Sure you are, I think.
It took a lot of effort to get my life set up this way, to find ways to keep him out, and now he’s found a way to unravel all my careful work and claim it’s in my best interest.
It’s not that I don’t believe him about Hex being a threat, it’s just…
I don’t believe there’s a chance in hell he’s not going to marry Sloane Whitley, and once he gets me in a cage, I have doubts he’ll ever let me out.
That isn’t the life I want.
I want him, but not that way.
I don’t want to be the pet he visits while he lives his real life with someone else.
I want him in my bed every night when I go to sleep, and I want him to be there with me in the morning.