Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Come to think of it, why was he so different from me? We could both see ghosts, but our similarities ended there. He terrified ghosts, while I'd be lucky to make a single dead person blink. Maybe that meant...
"Could you be cursed, do you think?" I blurted out.
"Er...no."
My shoulders slumped. A curse could've explained a lot of things, but oh well. "It doesn't matter," I said finally. "Let's just go as originally planned, and have you meet some of the ghosts. Nana and Mary Priscilla are like family to me, and—-"
"Saoirse—-"
"They need to know you're not—-"
"But I am."
I laughed, thinking he was joking, but Hadrian remained unsmiling. "Stop it." But this only made his jaw harden, and I started feeling uneasy. "This isn't funny anymore."
"I'm sorry you had to learn about it this way."
"Shut up."
"I'm sorry, Saoirse."
I stared at him helplessly, waiting for him to take the words back.
But he didn't.
"I d-don't understand," I stammered. "It's not possible. You're here in church. You can't be in church if you're—-"
"The D-word?"
I paled. "Are y-you?" Could Hadrian be a demon?
"No." Hadrian's voice was gentle. "But I am the Man in Black."
Chapter Nine
"Let me see if I got all of it right then..." Hadrian and I were at a small cafe located right across the church, and he had spent the past half hour telling me everything about being the Man in the Black while I worked my way through three cups of black coffee and a pair of French toasts.
"It's the requisite dress code at your workplace, to be dressed in black from head to toe?"
"Basically."
"And your job is to collect souls—-"
"The proper term is to deliver."
"For Hell—-"
"It's called the Underworld," Hadrian corrected with a wince.
"Like the Grim Reaper?"
"Actually..." Amusement flickered in his silvery gaze, and Hadrian seemed as if he was recalling something funny. "A woman—-"
A woman?
"—-once described my job as a bounty hunter."
"Huh." I disliked her immediately, that woman, and quickly changed the subject so he could forget about her, pronto. "Anyway..." My gaze narrowed at him. "You're also saying that the nature of your job requires you to be scary and sort-of-unidentifiable to ghosts?"
"Not all ghosts are good," Hadrian reminded me evenly. "It's my job to expedite delivery when certain souls are causing too much trouble."
"And that's it?" I asked uncertainly.
Hadrian studied my expression. "If there's something else you want to know, you only have to ask."
I wished I could believe him. I really did. But since what I wanted to know was something he was unlikely to confess to if it were the truth...
"Being the Man in Black doesn't make me the bad guy," Hadrian said quietly.
I knew that. But I also couldn't help thinking how all of my nightmares seemed to dwell in shadows...just like the Man in Black.
"Saoirse..." Hadrian tipped my chin up. "Are you afraid of me?"
I couldn't answer, and his eyes darkened.
"I'd never hurt you," he said fiercely. "Never."
A memory suddenly flashed in my mind: the first time Jason and I met, I hadn't liked him at all. I found him too arrogant and immature, but because he also ticked off everything in the average girl's dating checklist - good looks, stable job, nice hygiene - I had decided to ignore my guts and said yes to another date.
But on the other hand...
When Nana first revealed herself to be a ghost, the "acceptable" thing I could've done at that time was to call for the doctor and ask for meds. But if I had done that, I would've probably really lost my mind, locked away in an asylum and surrounded by people who would constantly tell me I was imagining things, and that I wasn't seeing ghosts.
Even if I were.
And that's why instincts mattered, I told myself. Love might be what made the world go round, but instincts were what changed and redefined it. We wouldn't have iPhones and iPods and iPads and everything with a lower-caps "i" if Steve Jobs hadn't listened to his instincts. The travel industry would never have boomed the way it did if not for a Boeing CEO gambling on his vision, and books like Carrie, The Time Traveler's Wife, and even Chicken Soup for the Soul would never have seen the light of day if not for people taking a chance on manuscripts that others had already written off as unpublishable.
Instincts mattered, I thought again, and right now, my instincts were telling me just one thing.
I lifted my gaze to his, and Hadrian breathed deep. "You trust me?"
I nodded.
He reached for my hand, and when he pressed it to his lips, I heard the words his kiss whispered..
Thank you.
And when I saw his gaze began to smolder, well—-
My body started tingling.
I definitely knew what that meant, too.
I'LL BE QUICK, I PROMISE. I just need to make you come.
The sound of Hadrian's lust-roughened voice played in my mind over and over, accompanied by delicious memories of how he had practically dragged me alongside him in his haste to leave the cafe and get me into the backseat of his car.