Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Rachel stirs. “What about Adam?” she asks.
My heartbeat stutters. I press a hand to my chest.
“Daphne? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I force out. I don’t have time to be sick right now. I have to be okay. “I don’t know what to do about Adam.”
I finally face her. She’s perfectly dressed and coiffed as usual, but she’s wrapped one arm around her middle and the other crossed over her chest, protecting and comforting herself. Her face is wan and pale.
“I don’t want to see him right now.” Funny how I’m rushing back to Logan, the Beast who locked me up, but I can’t stand the sight of the man who gave me a diamond ring.
My intuition is telling me something. I’ve numbed myself to it for years, but now it’s waking from slumber.
Maybe that’s why I’m so eager to head back to Logan. Somehow, somewhere in that castle I’ll find my truth. It’s been buried far too long.
Rachel holds my eyes for a long moment before she presses her lips together and nods. “Okay. Leave Adam to me. I’ll hold him off.”
“Thank you.” I rush to hug her.
She squeezes me, then pulls back to look in my eyes. “Don’t thank me. Just...take care of yourself, okay?”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Then, before I lose my nerve, I wheel my suitcase out the door. The cab is waiting to take me back to the castle.
Back into the arms of the Beast.
Because while he’s the Beast, he’s also...Logan. Sometimes the two barely fit together in my head and other times, I think, of course it was Logan all along. Of course only Logan could have ever made me feel so safe while I explored such wild things.
Only Logan would I have trusted to catch me when I leapt into the unknown. Only Logan could have known me better than I knew myself and how to draw me out.
Only Logan...always Logan.
Seven
8 Years Ago
Logan
I storm into the lab, that bastard Adam’s voice ringing in my ears as he bragged about banging yet another college co-ed who was ‘barely legal.’ What a fucking bastard. I can’t believe I ever considered that guy a friend.
When we both started working for Dr. Laurel, Adam showed me the same face he shows the rest of the world, polished golden boy, perfect in every way.
Until he realized I’m a nobody from nowhere. Then he didn’t see the point and started shirking his work off onto me, not showing up, but still expecting to take equal credit for what’s essentially become my work. Not that Dr. Laurel will hear a word against Adam, not the perfect Adam Archer. All he says is that we need to learn to get along if I want to keep my spot in the internship.
Fucking infuriating.
The door slams behind me and I hear a small yelp from the corner. I look up and freeze.
Because she’s there.
Dr. Laurel’s daughter. Soon to become a doctor herself, she’s so close to getting her Ph.D. even though she’s just a few months past eighteen.
She looks up at me, her eyes even larger and more luminous through her round bottle-glass lenses, which she immediately pulls off. But then she squints and puts them back on, running a hand through her hair and shyly saying, “Hi Logan.”
“Oh. Hi.” I cross the room over to the small study carrel at the edge of the lab where she has four huge textbooks open and a notebook with tiny scribbled notes covering the page.
As she looks up at me, her chest heaves up and down like breathing is suddenly becoming an issue for her.
And I’m immediately transported back to the ball a month ago. Walking up to her in that luminous toga that hugged all of her womanly curves, and watching the way she flushed so prettily when I spoke to her.
Not that it stopped her from gathering the courage to ask me to dance.
I don’t dance. Not even for you, I told her.
I meant to say more, to invite her to go for a walk, maybe out to one of the balconies where we could hear ourselves think beyond the unnerving roaring chatter of the ballroom.
But no.
Adam fucking Archer swept in and grabbed her, smirking at me as he led her onto the dance floor in my place.
He doesn’t care about Daphne. He barely speaks to her. But she was beautiful, the center of attention, and he could tell in that moment I wanted her.
But he’s not here right now. It’s just me and her.
And unlike him, even in her oversized sweater, tortoise shell glasses and her hair in a haphazard bun, I can see that she’s just as beautiful now as she was the night of the ball.
Her face has thinned out as she’s transformed from girl to woman while the rest of her body has softened. The tight leggings she’s wearing show off her curves as she curls up in her chair, one knee to her chest.