Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68509 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Because… damn.
Even rumpled from a flight, her long dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, she was a knockout. She was tall and fit with a killer rack and an understated way of dressing herself in black cargo pants and a black tank top.
And that face?
Pure perfection.
Even without a stitch of makeup on.
She was that effortless kind of pretty that could either say she knew she was hot enough without it, or that she simply didn’t want you to notice.
Judging by her tight posture, I figured it was the latter.
She had that “don’t fuck with me” sign tattooed on her forehead. Which was extra intriguing since she had one of those delicate, feminine faces—all soft, high cheeks, a delicate nose, and a cleft chin.
When I’d been boarding my flight, suddenly, I wasn’t obsessing over my mission to clear my name but feeling no small amount of disappointment at my missed connection with the pretty girl at the airport.
So imagine my surprise to see her once again in town just a few miles from the airport in Ecuador.
For a split second, I’d felt that flip in my stomach, all my innate practicality flying out the window, replaced with thoughts of fate or serendipity.
Until I realized she was looking at some goods at a street-side vendor… While trying to discreetly watch me.
Again, I’ll admit it, I’d felt that initial ego boost.
Until she became my shadow as I moved through town.
She’d had many chances to stop and speak to me, to seal the deal if she was just looking for a fun vacation fling.
So when she didn’t, it was clear—with no small amount of disappointment—that she wasn’t following me to take me to bed. But for some other unknown purpose.
And given the shitstorm I found myself in, there was no way it could be for any sort of good.
The plan, of course, was to simply get away from her. It wasn’t like I was about to put my hands on and hurt a woman. But some part of me needed answers first.
So I’d grabbed her in the alley.
And the way she fought against me suggested that I was right before she could even confirm it herself.
She didn’t fight like a scared woman in an alley; she fought like someone who had been trained for years to get herself out of dangerous situations.
Of all the things my wild imagination came up with in the span of a moment or two, a damn bounty hunter didn’t even cross my mind.
Namely, because I should have been safe from them the second I departed the United States.
But there she was.
I had to assume she knew the law.
So, what? Her plan was to somehow go around it? Was she that crazy?
The way she continued to be my shadow after I left her in that alley said that, yes, yes, she was.
My only choice was to lose her.
Which wouldn’t exactly be hard considering just where my journey was going to be taking me.
Even if she managed to pick up my trail and follow, the chances of her ever being able to catch up to me were slim to none.
Which was why I went ahead and didn’t try to lose her when I went back to my hotel room to shower and change out of my travel clothes.
Sure enough, when I made my way back out, she was leaning against the white stone hotel, looking tired and grumpy.
“That Panama hat looks ridiculous on you,” she said as soon as she spotted me.
“They’re called straw hats,” I corrected, glancing down the street. “And it looks great on me.”
That got a surprisingly charming snort out of her as she crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at me.
“You ready for this?” I asked as I spotted the local ride-share car pulling up on the road.
“Ready for what?” It was right then she spotted my backpack and duffle bag, though.
By the time she straightened from the wall and dropped her arms, I had the door open and my bag inside.
“Catch me if you can, duchess.”
Then I was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE
Violet
“Dammit.”
I mean, kudos to him; that was probably the coolest brush-off I’d ever gotten from a skip.
But I had to scramble to find my own cab, then try to direct the driver with my tentative grasp of the native language and his—slightly better—English.
If he thought it was weird that I was essentially telling him to follow some other car, he showed no signs. Though maybe groups of people did that all the time while on vacation when they didn’t all fit in the same vehicle.
Even with only a small head start, we managed to lose his car somewhere along the way.
That said, logic told me that even if this guy had access to his fortune that his file said the government never found, the chances of him taking a ride-share on some never-ending drive seemed unlikely.