Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
She pounded frantically at the door, but the lights remained dark.
She hammered on the door again.
“Open up. Please. Open the door!”
She heard the growl again, louder, closer. She gulped in terror and switched her phone to flashlight mode and swung around. There! By the fence. Eyes, illuminated by the light. She kept the flashlight focused in that direction, striving for a better look, when the phone finally died on her, plunging her into absolute darkness with a creature that looked about waist high to her five-foot-four-inch height.
She mewled in terror and plastered her back to the door, her left hand reaching for the doorknob, hoping that someone who lived this far from the rest of humanity would keep his doors unlocked. But the doorknob didn’t turn and the door wouldn’t budge.
Iris closed her eyes and asked for forgiveness for all her sins. She hoped her parents would understand what had driven her to come all this way. Hoped they wouldn’t be too disappointed in her… chasing a man, a story, a dream she wasn’t even sure was her own.
She was only twenty-six. She still had so much she wanted to do, so much to see, so much to—
The door swung inward behind her back and Iris, weak-kneed and terrified plummeted backward into the void.
She hit the floor—arse first—hard and sat there for a moment trying to get her bearings. It was still dark and something huge stood above her, and for a second’s blind panic she was sure it was the creature, until she recognized the two tall, solid structures straddled on either side of her waist as legs.
Long denim-clad legs.
“Oh, thank you, Jesus,” she breathed the reverent prayer as she smiled up at the man standing above her. She couldn’t quite see his face or expression in the dim light, but knew it had to be Trystan Abbott.
“Not quite.” The curt voice was at odds with what she’d been expecting, and she blinked up at him.
“What?”
“Not quite Jesus,” he elaborated. “Probably the exact opposite.”
Huh?
“Mr. Abbott?” She pushed clumsily to her feet, a little put out when he didn’t offer to help her up. For that matter, had he stepped aside when she’d lost her balance at the door? It had all been quite confusing in the moment, but now that the panic was receding she was almost certain he had. When he could easily have caught her.
He answered her question with two of his own. “Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing here?”
She lifted her head to meet his gaze—able to see much better now that her eyes had adjusted to the gloom—and couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open in shock. She stared, aware that the astonishment on her face had to be insultingly apparent to this hulking man in front of her.
“M-Mr. Abbott?” Her voice trailed off uncertainly and she continued to stare, looking for anything familiar in this man’s face. This couldn’t possibly be the same man who’d been voted Sexiest Man in the Universe three years in a row.
That Trystan Abbott had the kind of classic leading-man good looks that harkened back to an era when Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn had lit up the silver screen with their charisma and incomparable allure.
This guy—looking much older than his thirty-one years—had a long, unkempt beard and shaggy hair just brushing his big, broad shoulders and—while appearing clean enough—neither looked like they’d seen a comb in weeks. His lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line, and his eyes—those familiar, famous molten silver eyes, the only things remotely resembling the man she was here to speak with—were narrowed into an intimidating glare. None of the magnetism and charm Trystan Abbott was famed for was evident in that frosty gaze, and a shudder of unease crept down Iris’s spine. She’d had fond imaginings of witty discourse over cozy cups of coffee or tea. Free-flowing conversation, punctuated by the easy chatter and frequent laughter that had characterized all of the man’s previous interviews.
“Who are you?” he asked again, impatience rippling along the edges of the question.
“M-my name is Iris Hughes.” She fumbled around in her jacket pockets, hoping to magically produce a business card, but all she could find was used, crumpled up tissues, the receipt for the jacket, and a crisp pink South African banknote with a lion and cub printed on one side and a benevolently smiling Nelson Mandela on the other.
She stared blindly down at the useless bounty in her hands, wondering what her next move should be.
Don’t be silly, Iris, she scolded herself. Just tell him why you’re here.
That was easier said than done when one of the most famous men in the world was looming above her with that formidable glower marring his brow and narrowing his eyes. Her tongue and brain both seemed to have deserted her—not awesome when she’d hoped to dazzle him with her professionalism.