Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
“Gran!” Miss Lark laughs brightly again.
Miss Joly chokes out a sound. “How do you—”
Then she simply chokes.
A few muffin chunks fall out of her mouth as she goes into a purple-faced coughing fit, her eyes bulging.
Again, I act without thinking, launching myself from my chair. I round the table to hoist her up out of her seat, pulling her back against my chest and embracing her with my hands clasped together for the Heimlich.
One, two, three quick thumps that make her gag—then she spits out the enormous bite of muffin she’d choked on, sending her fork spinning off her plate as it strikes like a meteor.
Miss Joly slumps against me, sagging down into her seat as I gently let her go.
Wiping at her mouth, she clears her throat a few times, coughing out a “Thank you.”
Miss Lark and her grandmother were half out of their seats, expressions of frozen concern on their faces, but now they sink back down.
Miss Lark lets out a relieved sigh, brushing her mussed hair back, while Miss Jacqueline just looks at me with a penetrating gaze.
“My, you truly are quite the knight in shining armor, aren’t you?” she muses.
I’m not sure what to make of that.
Miss Lark glares at her friend. “That’s like the sixth time that’s happened. You have got to stop eating like that.”
“You’ve been telling me that since we were eight. Guess what? I still haven’t.” Miss Joly takes a sip of her tea. Afterward, her scratchy voice sounds much smoother, and she seems completely unbothered by the incident. “Maybe next time it’ll be a hot guy coming to the rescue who isn’t engaged to my best friend.”
Next I think it’s Miss Lark’s turn to choke.
“We aren’t engaged!” she throws back.
“Yet,” I point out as I reclaim my seat. “Will you let me explain now, or do we have to clean our plates a second time? I’d prefer to avoid Miss Joly asphyxiating herself in her curiosity.”
Miss Joly says nothing. Her blush betrays her.
Smirking, she flips her middle finger at me from across the table.
Miss Jacqueline swats her shoulder lightly. “Don’t be so crude at the table, Lena,” she fusses, then nods to me. “All right. Let’s hear this, before I give consent to marry my granddaughter.”
I start to protest that it’s not a real marriage and I don’t need consent, but fuck.
I have a feeling that if I let this conversation fly any further off the rails, there’s no telling what these women will badger me into.
So I lean over my half-empty plate and turn the tabloid pages over, fanning them out so they’re all visible.
The three women all gasp.
Who could blame them?
Every last cover page is splashed with an image of Eleanor Lark either already in my arms, or else falling into them.
I have no idea who took the photos. I wish I did.
They’d already be dead.
But in such a busy terminal, it could’ve been anyone.
I do have a mighty good idea who slipped them to the trashier arm of the press, but that’s a worry for later.
The headlines are our problem now.
IS HE BACK ON THE MEAT MARKET? BILLIONAIRE AUGUST MARSHALL RETURNS TO SEATTLE WITH A DRUNKEN DAMSEL! WILL SHE BE HIS NEXT VICTIM?
VULNERABLE VIXEN IN VICIOUS VILLAIN’S GRASP!
MAY–DECEMBER MAYHEM! WHO IS AUGUST MARSHALL’S MAIDEN?
THE BLACK WIDOW BOSS STRIKES AGAIN!
That last one knifes me in the guts.
Fuck them entirely.
One dead wife does not a black widow make.
Also, FYI, it’s the female black widow spider who’s always deadlier.
Miss Lark presses her fingers to her mouth.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers slowly. “I wasn’t drunk. You were just helping me. You aren’t a villain. Why are they doing this?”
The hurt tone in her voice gives me pause. She may be twenty-three, but at the moment she sounds like a young girl meeting the ugliness of the real world for the first time.
Shame I have to be that ugliness.
“My reputation has caught up with you,” I say. “An unearned reputation, I promise. I’m not in the habit of preying on random women at all. But a certain business rival has a vested interest in spreading this dreck, and you’ve been caught in the crossfire. You came to Seattle seeking employment, correct?”
“Well . . . yes,” she says faintly. “I mean, I’m also here to help out Gran, but I was going to take a few days to settle in and then start looking for jobs.”
She goes paler as the realization sinks in.
Somehow, her pallor only makes her look more unreal, bringing out shades of red in her eyelids, her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and her lips, as if colored with natural makeup.
She’s pretty as hell, and I need a firm slap across the face to quit staring.
“Oh. Now I see. So I guess Twitter figured out who I am from the photos.” She swallows visibly. “And that means if any employer googles me, that’s what’s going to come up. That I’m some drunken ho-bag sleeping with—whoever you are.” She stares at me. “Who are you, August? Why are they saying all these crazy things about you?”