Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80689 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“What?” Jonas asks.
“Just thought of something I need to bring up to Simon,” I lie. Just add it to all my other goddamn lies.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Just not used to being somewhere like this,” Jonas says, and it’s clear he’s picked up on the change in my mood.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” I tell him, making eye contact. I don’t want him to think he’s fucked up his chances at getting his money. As far as I’m concerned, whatever my brother has promised him, he’s owed.
Now I just need to know why the hell Simon needs this guy to hit on me.
I push to my feet, snatch my tray, and head for the door. As I reach it, I turn back around. “Just get back to work with the guys. I might be a minute.”
His wide-eyed expression tells me he knows I’ve figured out too much.
I could fucking kill Simon.
4
JONAS
As I FaceTime with Charity, she sits at her desk, reading off her laptop: “A beautiful, chateau-style manor hidden on three hundred acres of Georgia countryside. The Hawthorne family began construction of Hawthorne Heights in the early 1900s, a project that took nearly a decade to complete.”
She made time to chat with me a few days ago, but she didn’t have much energy, so I didn’t get to talk with her much. She’s more like her usual self today. Wearing a bandanna with a unicorns-and-rainbows print to cover where her hair’s fallen out, she has dark bags under her eyes, and I can tell she’s fighting to smile. She doesn’t want me to worry about her, but no amount of forced cheerfulness can prevent me from worrying.
“Those photos you sent don’t do the place justice,” she adds. “But you’re sticking to your story that this isn’t a big deal?” She shoots me a pointed glare.
When I first talked with Amy and Charity after I arrived, I didn’t reveal whom I was working for. I knew I couldn’t keep it from them for long, and my sis finally managed to get it out of me, which is what started her internet search.
“Maybe a little bit of a big deal,” I say.
She scans her laptop screen as she probes a little more about the job, asking about whom I work with and the duties I’m expected to perform. Of course, I stick to the story I told Aunt Amy, skirting around specifics, when she suddenly winces. “You said Simon was your boss, right? Have you read this about his parents?”
Tension rises within me. “You know, maybe you shouldn’t look at that.”
After my first day at Hawthorne Heights, I did a more thorough perusal on Google, discovering that Ryan and Simon’s mom overdosed when they were kids. Then later, when they were eighteen, their dad shot himself.
“They both killed themselves. How tragic.”
She’s talking about Ryan and Simon, but I know she’s thinking about our own loss.
She never met our father because his accident happened right before she was born. But she remembers the horror of losing Mom when she was torn from us by her own cancer—something that haunts me not just because of the hell we went through with that, but because it taught me that no matter how hard Charity fights this, I could still lose her too.
That’s why I’m fucking here. Because I have to do what I can to protect her.
“Okay, well, let’s not talk about it,” I say. “This isn’t exactly what I wanted to chat with you about.”
Not today. Not ever.
She shakes her head, pulling her gaze from her screen, though the far-off look in her eyes suggests she’s still thinking about the news she just discovered.
“Sorry,” she says. “I should be polite and wait to google when we’re not on the phone. I can’t help it, though. You and Aunt Amy are being so secretive. Anyway, wild to think people could have all that money and be that unhappy.”
“Money isn’t everything.” The words come out hollow. Even knowing that must be true, it’s hard to accept. But I guess the death of the Hawthornes’ parents is a reminder that if life can suck that bad for someone as well off as them, what chance do the rest of us have?
“Jonas…I know you said you’re not sure how long it’ll take to finish the job, but maybe you can come back for a weekend?”
I scratch at my face nervously. “I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, Char, and I’m honestly not sure how long it’ll be before I can come back.”
Fucking impossible to tell after my fuckup.
I’d jumped the gun. After two days of working with Ryan, struggling to think of how to make something happen, I made a move, but it was the wrong one. As soon as Ryan picked up on what I was aiming at, he got the hell out of there.