Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Answer me.”
Two words from the Earl of Edais. Two rumbled and dangerous ones.
“Yes.”
“No.”
Fyre’s gaze snapped open at the unmistakable refusal he gave. “What?”
He leaned back and lifted a brow, looking every bit the arrogant member of the peerage he was.
“You asked me a question. I gave you my answer.”
“My lord, surely…”
His lips flattened in what she believed to be serious irritation.
“Fyre, I hired you for a job. We sat down and went over the schedule of that job. If you have something else, or someone, who takes precedence over our agreement, we could end the entire thing.”
She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill free. “Why are you being like this?”
He stood and walked away from her. Damn if she didn’t want to reach out and grab onto him, holding him tight.
Kissing him.
This wasn’t the man she was used to being around. Cold. Clipped.
Albie would change his time. It would cost her, of course. However, he’d sprung this additional paperwork on her, saying he’d ‘forgotten’ about it until today. It wasn’t ideal but perhaps worth whatever deal she would have to make with him to have him accept the time change. But the sad part was, she actually liked the time she spent here, with this man, and didn’t wish to give it up. Then again, with this attitude, maybe she had been wrong about him all the way.
“Very well, my lord. I will figure it out. I beg your forgiveness for bothering you with my problems.” She slipped from the chair and went to the door.
“Are you going to be here or have you quit?”
Cold, harsh words.
She never looked back at him. “I will find a way to be here.” Then she slipped out the door and walked to the front, where a footman opened the exterior door from the cool interior into the hot outdoors.
This was what she’d needed. A reminder that she wasn’t even close to being his equal. Not a lesson she would forget. Without looking right or left at the men who milled outside, she walked down the long drive and headed back to town.
Now, now, she allowed the tears to slide free. Perhaps Elonne had been right and she should have let him quit that place for her.
She shook her head, still not bothering to dash away the tears on her face. By the time she made it back into town, the tears had mingled with the sweat on her face and weren’t an issue.
Fyre attempted to smile at a young boy she passed but couldn’t do much more than grimace. Walking into the store she needed to be at, she took a few moments and cleaned herself up, then went to the back and knocked on the door.
She stopped by Mr. Olden’s every other week to work on his books. Typically he was out front and just told her to head back. However she’d not seen him and this door was closed.
“Who is it?”
Scrambling sounds reached her and Fyre stepped back. “Gwen, sir.”
Silence.
“Come on in.”
“Yes, sir.” She opened the door a bit and was hit with the smell of sex. Pushing the door fully open, she stepped in.
Mr. Olden was standing behind his chair and sticking out from the other side of the large chair she could see some petticoats. She flushed. No doubt that woman was on her knees and Fyre could only assume as to what was going on.
“Work out front on the books.”
She walked to the desk and reached for them. “Very good, sir.”
He grabbed her wrist as she began to lift the tomes.
“What did you see here?”
“What I always see, Mr. Olden. You working in your office, waiting for me to do my job so you can get back to yours.”
He’d not stopped moving and when he released her, the chair he’d been behind had moved, allowing her to see his pale shaft driving deep into the open, waiting mouth of Mrs. Collier.
By a miracle, her expression never slipped from the fixed one Fyre had put there. She just lifted the books and walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.
For whatever reason, that pushed her to thinking about that act, not with Mr. Olden, heavens no, but with Phillip. She snorted as she pulled up a stool and opened the book.
I have no business thinking of him as Phillip. I have no business thinking of him at all.
Yet, it didn’t matter how mad she was at him for his behavior toward her, she still wanted him. Wanted to be on her knees before him. Wanted to have her skin flushed like that, due to time spent with Phillip.
Luckily, Mr. Olden left her alone to do his books her way. He had a bunch of written notes in there for her to address and she did so with expediency. She finished up the job in half the time she had expected it to take.