Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 165(@200wpm)___ 132(@250wpm)___ 110(@300wpm)
He's dangerous, scary, and getting involved with him would be the worst thing to do. When he knocks on her door late one night, he has an ultimatum. Her brother, who she is guardian of, is an addict. For drugs, he was willing to sell his sister and their home for anything he could get his hands on. To save her brother, she has to become Gabriel’s toy.
Gabriel is used to getting what he wants. From the moment he first met Faith, he wanted her, but he knew she would never fall for a man like him. He’s cold, hard, and knows only the harshness of life. To get what he wants, he is also willing to lie.
Her brother didn’t come to him offering up his sister. Nigel came to him for help. He wanted to get clean. So Gabriel will give him that, and in return, he is going to have Faith. She thinks it is just for one month. No, Gabriel has other plans. He wants to keep her, and the way to do that, get her pregnant.
Faith hates him. He’s a horrible person. A jerk. Mean. Vile. At least, that was what she first thought. Gabriel is never horrible to her. He is kind, considerate, sweet, charming, but she knows there is a deadly man inside. A man she couldn’t possibly fall in love with. He refused to wear a condom. She should hate him. But … she can’t hate him.
She has fallen in love with a man she had sworn to hate.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
If Gabriel Finch was standing inside her parents’ sitting room, this wasn’t a good thing.
Faith Appleton knew her brother wasn’t home. The cops had refused to go find him because he was a known problem. She’d been trying to take care of him for the last seven years, but since he turned eighteen, that had been impossible. He dropped out of school, began to hang around with the wrong crowd. He’d stolen, not just from shops, but also from her and their parents.
Their parents had died in a car accident when she was eighteen and Nigel was eleven. It was tough, but she’d been able to care for him, so he didn’t get taken from her. In the beginning it had been fine. They got along well, but then, they were brother and sister. Peace hadn’t lasted, though.
The man before her wasn’t a good man, or a kind man. She knew Nigel had several encounters with Gabriel before, and none of them ended well.
There was no point in calling the cops as he had them on his payroll. There was no point in alerting anyone. Gabriel ruled this city with an iron fist. You either had to stay under his radar, or bow down to him.
She’d stayed under his radar for a long time, until her brother attempted to steal from him. Then she’d become very much a beacon for these visits. Tonight wasn’t good. She hadn’t seen Nigel in three days. She had tried to call him, but he wouldn’t answer his cell. He’d not returned home. There had been no contact.
Now Gabriel had come to visit her at midnight.
She was still dressed, even though she had gotten in from work nearly five hours ago. After their parents passed, she had gotten a job at a fashion boutique. She loved the job, and had gone from a sales assistant, to personal assistant, to manager, helping run the shop in an ever-increasing struggle. They were thriving while other shops had started to fail.
Faith knew she made a good living, not a great one, but she made enough for herself and Nigel so they could continue to live in the city, with a few luxuries. She didn’t need anything else.
This was the first time Gabriel had stepped foot inside her home.
She had thought her parents’ modest, three-bedroom city home was rather spacious but with Gabriel inside, it no longer felt big. It felt small.
Rubbing her hands together, trying not to show him he unnerved her, or that she was ready to throw up, she looked at him and waited.
“What’s happened?” she asked.
He’d not spoken a word. She didn’t know if this made her appear weak, but she really didn’t care. She needed him to answer her.
“How long has your brother been addicted to meth?” Gabriel asked.
Faith opened and closed her mouth, startled. She knew Nigel dabbled, and she hated how her thoughts even made it seem like she was okay with him taking drugs. She wasn’t. All she had ever wanted was the best for him, but now, that seemed almost impossible.
“I … no, he … no,” she said, pressing a hand to her stomach, and the other to her lips. What did she say? “Where is he?”
“Why do you want to know?” Gabriel asked.
“What do you mean, why do I want to know? He’s my brother.”
“Are you going to punish him? Smack him on the ass? Ground him?”
“He’s … nearly nineteen years old.” And she’d never smacked her brother.
“Exactly. He knows there’s no firm hand coming.” Gabriel looked around her sitting room.
She hadn’t put away the pictures of her parents, their family. She and Nigel hadn’t taken many in recent years. There was nothing new or exciting around her family home.
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Do you know where Nigel is?”
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
His blue gaze turned to hers, and Faith felt frozen to the spot. She had blue eyes as well, but hers were not quite as sharp as Gabriel’s. This man had seen and done a lot of bad things.
Nibbling her lip, she waited for him to speak. This was bad. Everything was telling her that this was bad.
“I was at a card game tonight and your brother came in. He was a mess. Sweating, pale, he looked like he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in weeks. He stunk bad, but he was there to beg for money. Telling me he would give me anything I wanted. In fact, he turned his attention to the whole table of men and said he needed a loan.”
Faith couldn’t believe it. Her brother begging for money.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I asked him what he would give me in return. He said there was this house. He could give us the deeds, and when none of us showed any interest, he said he had a sister who was still a virgin.”