Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“You want to get out and walk?” I heard him shout over the music.
“Sure.” I was more than ready to walk back to the hotel at this point. No less had I finished speaking than the truck hit another pothole, and in an attempt to save my phone from flying into the windshield, my forehead crashed against the dashboard.
“Heads up.” He was struggling to keep the humor out of his voice, the bastard. I looked over as I rubbed the sore spot and found him suspiciously pressing his lips into a forced straight line.
Twenty yards away, a log cabin appeared. It had a wraparound porch, a stone chimney, and was surrounded by grass as far as the eye could see. Scott pulled over and parked the pickup. Under my long black cashmere coat, I had on skinny jeans and running sneakers. Not the best outfit for traipsing through pastureland wet from a thawing layer of snow. Then again, I hadn’t exactly anticipated an Outward Bound excursion when I packed the bag I always left at the office. Most emergency trips took me to cities like Rome, Dubai, Tokyo. Not…the middle of nowhere.
As soon as my right sneaker hit the ground, it sank up to my ankle. Powerless, all I could do was watch it disappear into the muddy abyss. At least, I hoped it was only mud. By then, Scott had already walked around to my side of the pickup and stood there watching me try to extract my foot without losing my now ruined brand-new ASICS. The pretty neon orange and black shoe was indistinguishable from a pile of dog doo-doo. My gaze rose to meet Scott’s.
“Watch your step,” he said, lips twitching. Before I could respond, he turned and headed for the cabin.
You’d never be able to guess that he was getting under my skin though. I had practically invented poker face, wore calm indifference so effortlessly it had become second nature. And over the years, it had served me well. I’d been trained by the best after all. My grandparents.
There were a handful of things I could count on growing up in their house. Steady punishment for sins I hadn’t committed, strict rules, and Sundays at church––the one day of the week the beatings stopped. Everything else was a myth I read about in the books I found at the town library. Scott and his antics were child’s play in comparison. If this was a competition in determination and discipline, he was fighting way out of his class. I’d won the heavyweight title in my teens.
A sharp chill made me shiver, the temperature cooler than it was in New York. As I flipped up the collar of my coat, I watched Scott walk ahead with his elephant dogs trotting after him. Then I noticed the knee-high muck boots he wore, his jeans neatly tucked inside. A few minutes later we both stood before the cabin with the wraparound porch. Scott with a smirk on his face. Me with a wrinkle between my brows.
“Home sweet home,” he said, and my back stiffened.
This was his home? Impossible. Scott was a hedonist in the truest definition of the word. He loved his creature comforts. That he drove that old jalopy of a truck had initially surprised me, but then the smell and the dogs had stolen that sentiment away. This couldn’t be his home. No way.
“How…quaint.”
Knocking the mud off his boots on the side of the steps, he glanced over his broad shoulder and grinned. A full-blown one with dimples and everything. Even under the neat scruff, they refused to stay hidden. It was the first time since I’d arrived that he looked like the Scott I used to know. Tilting my head, I offered him a fake one instead. The retaliation brainstorm, I’d conduct later. Possibly frame him for murder. It was worth considering. Not before he signed that marriage certificate, though. And not before I was named CEO.
“Leave your shoes there.” He jerked his chin at a copper mud tray lying next to the front door he pushed open. It wasn’t locked and why would it be? There wasn’t anything other than cow shit, solitude, and wildlife in the hundred-mile radius.
I toed off my now brown sneakers and peeled off my muddy socks, entering with a strong dose of dread swirling in my gut. Judging by the exterior, there couldn’t be more than three full rooms in the cabin. I looked around; an exercise that took all of a second to determine I was wrong. Only two full rooms––the living area and a single bedroom across the way.
“It’s not much but it’s comfortable.” He gestured, sweeping his arm from the stone wood-burning fireplace to the kitchen located on the opposite side of the room, a handful of feet away. Shamefully, the first thought that occurred to me was…this is where he hosts his orgies?