Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108173 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
She reached for her inhaler and but she was in her night clothes and the inhaler was on her bed table.
Ben stepped toward her, but she shied away from him with a glare. He held an inhaler up, clutched between his thumb and forefinger and she grabbed it and sucked in the metered dose gratefully.
She waited for the bronchodilator to do its job, but nothing happened, and she panicked, taking in a second dose.
“Lilah?” Ben’s voice was sharp and alarmed. “Shit. Come on, sit down, baby. You have to calm down, okay?”
He wrapped an arm around her hunched shoulders and he led her to the chair by her vanity, where he sank to his haunches in front of her, taking her hands in his. His concerned eyes sharpened on her face and the dark pupils, so striking in the middle of the ocean blue of his irises, dilated to the point where only a sliver of blue remained. He swore shakily.
“Your lips are going purple. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Lilah—incapable of speech by now—shook her head and held up the inhaler.
“Alright, a few more puffs, leannan,” he acquiesced. “But first try and breathe with me. Nice, deep breaths.”
She tried, but it felt like she was breathing through a straw… It didn’t help that the source of her stress, the trigger for this attack was sitting there calmly telling her to breathe like it was the fucking easiest thing in the world.
“L-lea…” The word wouldn’t emerge, but she could tell by the way he flinched, that he knew exactly what she wanted to say. That she wanted him to leave her alone. But she knew he wouldn’t.
He would never let her go through this alone. And perversely, that helped calm her somewhat. Despite her anger, her hurt, and her resentment, she knew that Ben would move heaven and earth to keep her safe. It was his curse, this disproportionate sense of responsibility he felt toward her.
Tears seeped down her cheeks as she weakly lifted her inhaler and took another dose, while Ben squeezed her free hand reassuringly and kept talking to her. Calmly, gently, guiding her through it. It took several more doses before she could breathe freely again and sensing that the crisis had reached a turning point, Ben led her to the room and to her bed.
“No. I’m leaving,” she said, exhaustion dragging at every word.
“Tomorrow, okay? Tonight, I need you to rest. Please, Lilah.”
Feeling as wrung out as a dishcloth, she accepted defeat for now and crawled beneath the covers.
She was asleep in seconds.
TWENTY-THREE
Eight Years Ago
“Ben?” The voice on the other end of the line was an urgent whisper and Ben—who’d left a meeting to take the call—frowned in alarm.
“Lilah? What’s wrong?”
“The girls and I are in some trouble. We were tricked into believing we were invited to this big varsity party. But when we showed up it was to find only second and third year boys here. We wanted to leave but they won’t let us out. I told them I needed to pee and came to the bathroom to call you. We’re scared, Ben, we don’t know what to do.”
“Where’s Sheena?” Ben asked, trying to tamp down his impatience. How was this his problem? Lilah had a female guard—young—chosen for her ability blend in with the students.
“You’re going to be angry.”
Ben sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Lilah’s management fell under his unofficial purview. Cyrus had never specifically said it was Ben’s job to keep an eye on her, but Ben had taken it upon himself to be something of a big brother to the little pest. He’d hoped that it would get easier the older she got, yet here they were—nineteen-year-old Lilah getting herself into shit as always.
“What did you do?” he asked in weary resignation.
“I ditched her back at campus, snuck out of the library bathroom window.”
“Fuck me,” Ben groaned, squeezing his nape. He already had a headache building. “What’s the address? I’ll call Sheena and tell her where to pick you up.”
“I, uh, I kind of took her phone. I didn’t want her to call anybody until I had a chance to get away cleanly. I hate having a bodyguard. I know she’s supposed to be inconspicuous, but she’s not. For once I just wanted to be like everybody else here.”
Ben scraped a hand over his face and stared back at the budget meeting longingly. As a rule he fucking hated budget meetings—especially ones that ran late on a Friday evening—but it was so much more preferable than dealing with this Lilah shit.
She just wanted to be like everybody else? When her grandfather was one of the wealthiest men in the country? The kid was fucking deluded.
“Give me the address,” he demanded. She whispered the address of a house somewhere in Newlands. Ben jotted it down on a post-it note, phone pinched between his ear and shoulder. “How many boys are there?”