Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144571 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Would they even have a choice? Kala turned slightly, wondering if she could tell where they were. The blind was down. Would they stop her if she opened it?
“He wasn’t getting with the plan,” John was saying. “I thought I’d save you the trouble and fire him. You told me to watch out for the kid. I didn’t like the way he looked at her.”
She felt Kyle stiffen beside her and looked up to realize they had a newbie.
Julia Ennis. Kyle’s evil ex. Proof her cousin had terrible taste in women. MaeBe was a lucky accident.
She looked normal. Long blonde hair. Fit body. There was something about her face that was too sharp. As though her hard edges couldn’t be contained by mere personality. This was the woman who had dragged Kyle so low.
So low. Because she “loved” him. Because she was obsessed with him. Because deep down it was simply what a woman like her did.
Some nasty questions played at Kala’s brain, but she shoved them away. She didn’t have to answer them now. There was plenty of time to wonder is she was even still a virgin much less ponder if she deserved all of this.
“And now you have one less person to share the pay with,” Julia said with a dismissive wave. “Well, he’s yours to clean up. After. For now I want you to take the young Miss Taggart to the limo. Don’t take your eyes off her. She’s smarter than she looks.”
Kyle stood, putting himself between Kala and Julia. “I’m not letting you take her. You promised me I could stay with her.”
“Well, she’s not getting far, and John seems to know how to handle anyone who doesn’t understand how I want my underaged prisoners treated.” A long sigh came from Julia’s chest. “She’s going to go sit in the limo so we can talk. I’m not going to send her off somewhere. I have a room ready for you at my house, and I will allow you to share it with her. Maybe you can keep her under control. I have no idea what the Taggarts have been teaching their kids, but that one is practically feral.”
She might be feral from here on out. Why the hell not? It wasn’t like she fit in when she followed her own instincts. “You should remember that.”
Julia glanced around Kyle’s big shoulders, looking her way. “She reminds me of me at her age. Except I was better with manners. Her father should beat her more.”
Reminds me of me. Reminds me of the woman who knew how to drag a man down.
There was more conversation, but all Kala heard for a moment was Cooper’s voice.
Sometimes when a person is drowning, they end up dragging the person trying to save them down, too.
“Excellent. Why don’t you and John take Miss Taggart out to the limo while I talk to my fiancé?”
The words jarred Kala out of the miasma of her misery. She had to be better than this. Maybe in this case, she had to be exactly what everyone thought she was. Unfeeling. Uncaring. Out for herself. Unafraid. Utterly unafraid. “Oh, my god, lady. You are delusional. He’s not your fiancé. He’s practically married to MaeBe.”
Kyle’s head shook. “No, I’m not. Mae’s never going to forgive me for leaving her. We don’t have a relationship anymore.”
She was screwing up, but then wasn’t that what she did? She tried to shake it off. “Well, if that’s true, you screwed that up. MaeBe is awesome. Kyle kind of sucks. He makes everyone in the family go to his lame funeral and he didn’t even respect us enough to actually be dead. At least I got an Xbox out of it.”
Julia ignored her sarcasm. “It was inevitable that any relationship Kyle tried would fail. He was already in the most important relationship of his life.”
Kala’s only refuge was sarcasm. “Yes, with his Xbox. He loved that thing, and now it’s mine.”
She could practically hear Julia growl her way. There was a dark look on the woman’s face that seemed to force Kyle to move.
“I need you to promise me she won’t be hurt and you won’t separate us for more than a few minutes.” Kyle sounded so reasonable.
Julia put a hand on her cousin’s chest, an entirely possessive gesture.
She put her hand on Cooper’s chest when they were alone. Like she could feel his heartbeat.
What if she was fooling herself and what seemed like love was mere possession? Everyone talked about how obsessively possessive she could be. She’d heard people talk about how she wouldn’t let anyone near Lou. How she horded her best friend like a dragon with gold.
Dragons weren’t exactly the good guys.
“I think you want me to get her back to her parents at the first opportunity. But yes to everything you asked,” Julia was saying. “She will come to no harm unless new John here doesn’t want his job.”