Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93482 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
I took a moment to appreciate how small she looked wearing my shirt, so petite, and so beautiful. Her skin seemed iridescent against the rich black fabric that swamped her, and I could catch just a hint of her full breasts in the gaps between the buttons. I liked her in my clothes. She looked good in them.
Before I let my mind linger on that thought too long, I hit the switch behind her and flooded the room with bright white, fluorescent light.
Her eyes flicked back up to mine, and her eyes widened, her lips parted.
I wasn’t sure if she recognized me. After all, I looked a lot like Luc, but I also just had that effect on women. My face had both condemned me at times and been a blessing at others. I knew I was attractive. I worked hard to keep my body in peak physical form. Add the strong Roman nose, a love of expensive Italian clothing, the Manwarring jawline, and the predatory smile… women fell at my feet, usually on their knees.
Of course, there was something to say about appealing to specific dirty fantasies. A lot of women were more turned on by the taboo, wanting and having the forbidden, but the pretty wrapping helped.
Without a word, I pushed myself away from the wall and turned my back on her, stepping over to my wardrobe and grabbing a fresh shirt. A gentleman would have offered her a fresh shirt or, at the very least, a pair of sweatpants to cover her legs in the biting cold.
It had occurred to me, but I didn’t. I needed to remind myself who she was—the daughter of the bitch I was taking down—and what she was—the method of her mother’s demise.
I couldn’t show her kindness. She would have expected it. No one would have ever been anything but courteous to the little Astrid princess, and me being a dick was going to throw her. Keeping her off balance was how I intended to get my power over her back.
“What were you doing all alone in that alley?” I asked, buttoning up my black shirt.
“I was delivering ornaments to the church when I got dragged in there,” she said, looking around now that her eyes had adjusted to the light.
“Where are they now?”
“Broken.”
“Seems like someone else should have delivered them. How will you replace them?”
“The same way I got them, my mother will send some poor maid out to hunt in thrift stores, and then my mother will pretend they were family heirlooms.”
I had to bite back a laugh because that was precisely what Mary Quinn would do. Sowing the seeds of doubt would be fun once I got her a little further from her friends. If the women of the Upper East Side were to discover the baubles they admired and gushed about were not only not heirloom gifts but were instead someone’s castaways bought in a dingy secondhand store, they would turn their backs on her so fast. Mary Quinn’s isolation was going to make her downfall so much smoother.
I moved to my dresser, placing the pinky ring I had been wearing in a small dish with some cleaning solution. The blood would take a while to get out of the grooves around the diamond. Instead, I slid on another one, a simple signet ring that was far more appropriate. It had an engraving of Saint Jerome Emiliani, patron saint of orphans and abandoned children. Not that I gave a fuck about orphans, but it was a constant reminder of why I was on the path that I was on.
It reminded me who set me on this path and why it was so important to get my vengeance.
My cell phone was also on the dresser. I picked it up and called the car service my family used the most.
“Mr. Manwarring, how may I be of service?” the voice on the other end said, and I looked in the mirror, watching Rose behind me look around and fold her arms over her chest like that would somehow hide her state of undress. I liked her uncomfortable and fidgeting with her nails, worrying her plump bottom lip with her teeth.
“Yes, I need a car sent to my residence. Ms. Rose Astrid is requiring a ride home.”
The second I said her name, her eyes snapped to me, a little line of confusion forming on her brow, and she sank into herself a little more.
“Right away, sir,” the dispatcher said. “I have a car about three minutes from your location.”
I hung up the phone and kept my eyes on my little captive in the mirror.
“How do you know who I am?” she asked.
I ignored the question, and I chose what cross to wear. I had planned to wear the one with rubies inlaid into the chain, but since I had to alter the ring, I supposed the yellow gold one would suffice.