Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
He laughs, de-seeding the peppers with efficient, expert hands. “What didn’t you chatter about? The tree you thought was shaped like a dinosaur. The woman at the market arguing with her daughter. You were always listening in on other people’s conversations. You called it people-watching. You said the whole world was your experiment, and you were a social scientist, watching on. You wanted to go to college, but your dad never stayed in one place long enough.” He only grits his teeth a little at the mention of my father before going on. “We said we’d use the money to send you to college when we ran off together.”
He looks up at me as he pulls green onions out of a bag. “I always wondered if you ever got to go. You know, with the money.”
“What money?”
He blinks for a second, then looks back down at his onions on the chopping block. “Right. You don’t remember. We were hacking back then. It’s what you recruited me for. Companies had shit security in the 2010s, so we’d backdoor our way in and skim off the top. Small enough amounts not to be noticed. Rounding errors.” He looks up at me. “And then, right before we were supposed to leave, big chunks.”
“Oh.” I’m a little speechless. Then I take another look around the huge, luxury mansion I’m standing in. “Is that what you still do?”
A laugh bursts from his chest, startling me into smiling and looking back at him. It’s always so unexpected when I get any expression of actual mirth from him.
“No,” he says, still looking amused, then a little less so when he goes on, “No, I work for the other guys now. Anti-spyware and anti-virus software. I learned my lesson after—” he cuts himself off, his eyes distant in that way he seems to get whenever he thinks of… of him. “Well, after.”
He drops the knife to the chopping block and shoves both his palms into his eye sockets, and again, I take a couple of steps back.
Is he disgusted by me now? Because he thought I was a beautiful woman who looked like Brittney Spears but in reality I was just a kid?
Or is he disgusted because I’m my father’s daughter?
Ridiculously, I want to shout, I’m a woman now.
Everything I learn about the past is so ugly. “I don’t want to know anymore. Don’t tell me anymore about what happened then.”
“Alright.” He drops his hands and turns back to the counter, whipping the eggs we dropped into the bowl furiously. His voice comes back deep and even. “I’ll just get you breakfast and then drop you at Moira’s.”
My mouth drops open and I felt like a horse has just kicked me in the chest.
That easy?
He’ll just discard me like that?
After everything he just put me through? And all he said we were to each other? Why the fuck does he get to decide? Because he still thinks he’s Sir?
“No!”
He’s just poured the egg in the hissing pan, when he turns to me.
“What?” He asks it almost distractedly, as if annoyed I’m questioning him.
“I said no.” I stomp over to him and get right in his face. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”
His jaw tenses as he glares down at me. “You will. Because it’s what’s best for you.”
I scoff. “And you suddenly know what’s best for me?”
“Yes. I do.”
I scoff again. “Why the fuck is that?”
His eyes narrow. “Because I’m your elder.”
“You’re just a twenty-six-year-old asshole. You don’t control me. You don’t control shit.”
His features harden dangerously in the way Sir’s did downstairs in the dungeon sometimes. “Don’t push me, love. I’m keeping myself on a very tight leash.”
Oh he is, is he?
I know what I want now. I don’t just want to be near Donny. And I want more than for him to look at me like he did at me in those pictures. I want to feel it all. That and what I had this last week, all mixed up together in whatever we are or could be together now.
So I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him.
And the second our lips collide, it’s like I’ve unleashed a storm, because he kisses me just as furiously back.
TWENTY-FOUR
DOMHNALL
I absolutely fucking lose myself in the taste of her lips.
I’ve missed her so goddamn fucking much. I pin her to the counter and kiss her just like I used to in those long afternoons lost on the Green, making out like mad teenagers.
Fuck I’ve missed the taste of her lips. She kisses the exact way she used to. She feels the same, too. And for just a moment, I’m the same kid I was back then. Cold grass underneath us and the Dublin sun only occasionally breaking thru the fog and glinting off the water.
She and me were the only things in the world.