Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
There. That sounds logical. And even a bit closer to the truth.
Sydney sends me a considering stare. “What do you recommend next?”
“An early lunch?”
“Actually, I was about to toss together a sandwich. You’re welcome to join me.”
“I meant to take you out.”
“Wouldn’t staying in allow for more privacy? If we’re going to…get to know one another, that’s harder in public.”
And far too easy to succumb to the temptation to put my hands all over her. “If you like, but—”
“Perfect.” She rises to her feet and heads for the kitchen.
I follow.
“Tell me about your parents.” She starts grabbing ingredients. “Are they still alive?”
Wait. I’m supposed to be getting to know her, finding ways to make her trust me, not the other way around. “They are, but I was a late-in-life baby. They’re quite elderly. Yours? I came to learn about you.”
“In a bit.” She waves off my question. “So you’re caring for your brother because your parents can’t?”
“Precisely.”
“No other siblings?”
Not anymore, and not for anything will I dredge up that terrible story. “No. You? Any siblings?”
“Only child. Stop changing the subject,” she admonishes, opening a jar. “Mustard?”
“Please. I really want—”
“How much older is your brother?”
Three hundred sixty-seven years, but I doubt she’ll take that information well. “More than a decade.”
“Significant, then. Tell me more about his illness.”
“Lucan is unconscious. The doctors have little idea how to help him since the onset of this illness was so sudden. And when did ‘getting to know you’ become the Inquisition?”
“Since I decided to figure you out.”
As Sydney spreads mustard on brown bread, I ease up behind her, place my hands on her hips and whisper against her neck, “I’m here to get to know you.”
With a saucy tilt of her head, she shoots me a glance over her shoulder. “All right. As I’ve said, no siblings. My parents are both professors. My mother teaches history at Oxford. My father once taught, but now conducts very important research to help create a purely artificial fuel source.”
At my grimace, Sydney laughs. “You asked.”
“They sound very serious, indeed.”
“You have no idea. Even more so in person, I assure you.”
Something on her face gives me pause. “And are they supportive of your career?”
“I’m a bitter disappointment, and they remind me of that every time I see them.”
Though Sydney answers laughingly, the pain on her face is unmistakable. She’s hurt by their lack of support. Their lack of faith in her. It’s foolish and dangerous, but I ease my arms around her and bring her as close against me as I dare.
“I think you’re brilliant, and I have no doubt that someday you’ll be wildly famous for doing exactly what you love.”
“Flattery?” She doesn’t sound impressed.
“No,” I assure her. Sydney wowed me from her very first story. Though she knows nothing about magickind, she’s somehow caught onto its nuances, including what’s important to the warring factions. “Honesty.”
Resisting the impulse to kiss is killing me. It’s all I can do not to grab her, taste her plump, pink mouth, and ravish her… Yet I’m equally tempted to simply take her hand and tell her how bloody brilliant I think she is.
Damn my magical impulses for dangling this temptation in front of me and making her so forbidden. If she is, as I suspect, the mate magic intends for me—
No, I can’t even consider that, or I’ll go mad.
The reality is, despite my best intentions and all my objections, I’ve been dragged deep into this magical war. Not only do I want to avoid Lucan’s fate, but I don’t want Sydney in danger. If I kiss her and succumb to the urge to Call to her… I can’t bear the thought that, instead of reporting about a woman who was terrorized by Mathias, she might actually become one.
“Are you going to stare at my mouth all day or kiss me?”
I back away. “We’re taking it slow, remember? Let me help with lunch.”
She sighs and turns back to making sandwiches. “There are clementines and crisps in the cupboard.”
After retrieving them, I turn to find Sydney setting up the little bistro-style table in her kitchen. She grabs two plates piled high with lettuce and fresh tomato. I hold out her chair. Sydney raises a brow at me but sits.
“So…” I slide into the opposite chair and take control of the conversation before she can start interrogating me again. “Your parents don’t love what you’ve chosen to do with your life. My guess is that you work very hard to be the best and hope they will someday recognize your genius.”
“Something like that. Though I know I can’t live to please them."
“But you hate to disappoint them, right?”
She swallows her bite of sandwich and peers across the table at me. “You came to get to know me, yet clearly you already do. Perhaps we skip the rest of this silly ‘getting to know you’ crap and go straight to bed?”