Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
He went over every detail of their conversations. Several times she hadn’t wanted to tell him personal things, but she had when he just simply looked disappointed. The thing was, he hadn’t been playing her—he was disappointed. He not only found himself intensely attracted to her physically, but he wanted to know everything there was to know about her. Strangely, he had an overwhelming need to protect her. To keep her safe. To make her happy.
Being with him would never be a picnic, and she deserved so much better. That was one of the many things he had to face. If he managed to convince her to take him on, was it even fair to her? The answer was no. Still, he was selfish enough to take into consideration how he would feel if he didn’t try with her.
Maestro wasn’t used to having emotions, let alone the intensity of these feelings he had for Azelie. He hadn’t trusted her or his own emotions. The moment she attempted to return the earrings to him, he had been horrified at his reaction to her. He wanted her with every cell in his body. He wanted to keep her. To make her his exclusively. Alarm rushed through him, so much adrenaline he couldn’t control it.
At the same time, he wanted to be away from her, desperate to convince himself she was a betrayer like every other woman he’d known—with the exception of Alena and Lana. Out for themselves. Greedy and conniving. Or unable to follow the slightest command because their egos refused to acknowledge that he might know more about security than they did.
The music flowed through him, a soft, intimate melody, and he could hear the lyrics building in his mind. His music never lied to him. If it told him she was real, she was. The longer he played, the more he felt her wrapping herself around his soul. It was a frightening sensation for him, and yet he didn’t stop playing. He needed to feel her close to him. Imagine her in the house, turning it into a real home. Imagine her waiting for him at the door. Giving him her angelic smile. Giving him whatever he asked for.
He acknowledged to himself he’d never had the same feeling for another human being. He wasn’t a coward. If she had the courage to face him, to answer personal questions and go that far out of her comfort zone for him, he couldn’t do less for her.
He’d vowed never to pursue a woman or trust one outside the club, and he had good reason, but he realized he wasn’t willing to give Zelie up. Not without a fight. That was the bottom line. He needed to see her again. He had to know if there was any chance at all for him to have a real relationship with her. The idea of cutting her out of his life so abruptly without even giving them a chance was unacceptable to him.
“Where does that leave us?” he murmured aloud.
He played for another five minutes without stopping, listening carefully to the perfectly pitched notes telling him he was on the right track. He waited for the answers, the music freeing his mind as his fingers flew over the ivory keys.
Maestro had a very important job to do. He couldn’t blow it by placing Azelie in danger. That meant he couldn’t tell her what he was doing. If he was going to work at a real relationship, he would have to tell her after they got the information needed and he knew she couldn’t possibly be held accountable by Billows. He didn’t have to play her. He could be real, himself, and hope everything worked out between them. The moment the mission was accomplished, he would come clean.
Azelie would like that he helped find trafficking victims. She would understand why he didn’t tell her what he was there for. She might not like that he had initially approached her because he was on the job, but once he explained that the attraction was very real and he wanted, even needed, a continuing relationship with her, he was certain she would be understanding.
Once he made up his mind that he was going to pursue her and do his best to tie her to him, he swung around on the piano bench, blinking to try to clear the memories from his brain. The moment he stopped the flow of music, his past tried to crowd in. The betrayals. The tortures. The rapes. The very ugly deaths. Every girl, every woman, starting with his mother and aunt, had betrayed him.
He hadn’t known anything else. Without Czar, Keys and Steele, he would never have survived those early days. The psychological torture was far worse than any of the physical tortures he had been subjected to during his childhood and teenage years. He didn’t want those doors opened to his past, not when he had found a woman who might actually be someone amazing and compatible with a man like him.