Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
I did all of this terrified out of my skull.
Because I did it hearing the heavy footsteps following right behind me.
A hand landed on my shoulder.
I screamed and whirled, ready for anything.
And there was Christian.
Oh fuck.
Was Christian a creepy stalker?
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“Were you following me?” I asked.
The door behind me opened.
Christian’s hazel eyes flicked there but returned immediately to me. “Were you with someone?”
“No.”
“Who was chasing after you?”
“You saw them?” I breathed.
His jaw got hard, he shoved me, I landed in someone’s arms, and he growled, “Call 999,” and then took off into the night.
“You’re trembling something fierce,” Fitzy said, pulling me inside. “What’s happening?”
“Terry, she’s bleeding!” Patsy cried.
Fitzy sat me in a chair and grabbed my hands.
While he was rotating them to look at my palms, I said, “Someone is out there.”
His gaze snapped to my eyes then he turned to his wife. “Call 999, luv. Now.”
She raced away.
“Lock the door,” I begged. “Please lock the door.”
“It’s locked. It’s on a latch, Miss Vivi.”
I nodded and couldn’t stop doing it.
“Breathe, luv, just breathe,” he urged. “I’ll be back.”
And then he disappeared.
I stared down at my hands.
They were a mess.
God, I went down harder than I thought.
Patsy hustled in with a first aid kit. “I’ve put the kettle on. Nice spot of tea will do you good.” She knelt in front of me, set the kit on the floor and took hold of my wrists. “These are going to need a bit of cleaning. Just a tick and I’ll have some nice warm water and soap.”
She got up, reached for a throw, tossed it around my shoulders and took off again.
I looked out their windows.
Just dark night. No colored lights.
The cold of my wet clothes and hair hit me and my teeth started chattering.
Patsy came back, and was in the middle of bathing my hands when Prue and Chassie rushed in.
“Oh my goodness!” Prue cried. “What happened to you?”
“I—”
“Kettle’s boiled,” Patsy interrupted me. “You girls, make us all tea. Be sure to make one for Christian too, for when he gets back.”
“Christian?” Chassie asked.
“Please just make the tea, dear,” Patsy said.
They both ran to the kitchen.
“Just a lot of cuts, luv,” she said to me. “Nothing too deep. Might be hard to type for a few days, but it won’t be long until you’re good as new.”
“My knee really hurts.”
She looked to my knee.
I looked to my knee.
On my right one, my jeans were torn and blood was oozing.
Shit.
Totally went down hard.
“I’ll get to that next,” she said.
“The cats are outside,” I told her.
“We’ll have a look for them in a tick.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
She grasped hold of my wrists firmly, and I focused on her.
“You’re safe, Vivi, all right?”
I took in a super deep breath.
And I nodded.
She reached for the Germolene to put on my hands.
I was pacing the green salon.
Not true.
I was limping through the green salon (my knee hurt like a mother) and doing it back and forth.
Prue, Chassie, Fitzy, Patsy and Scotty were with me.
We were here because it was at the front of the house, and we wanted to see when Christian and Harry got back.
Fitzy had called the steward’s cottage and sent the men out to help Christian.
As Patsy tended to me, the police came.
They then left, with Christian and Scotty, because they caught whoever it was who’d been fucking with me, so they all went to the station.
We were now waiting for them to come home and give us the lowdown.
I’d toweled my hair, but it was a frizzed disaster and still damp (hair didn’t dry very fast in England, just sayin’), and I’d changed into a knit lounge set to keep warm.
I’d had four cups of tea.
But it wasn’t those that made me revved.
Phantoms in the ballroom.
Someone chasing me through the night.
And I knew, down to my soul, those phantoms were dancing to warn me to get to the house.
Do not ask how I knew that, but I knew.
They were a beacon to guide me to safety.
I just hadn’t noticed them until too late.
What I did notice was that they went away when I was in the house and safe.
That was why I was revved.
Outside the good news that the men had caught whoever-the-fuck was dicking with me, when Fitzy went out to see if he could find the cats, he didn’t have to go far. They were wet and cranky (cranky because they were wet) and loitering by the door off the ladies’ lounge.
So they were in there with us, along with Soot, Greystoke and Floofy.
Chassie, at the window waiting for Christian, abruptly turned to the room.
“They’re back.” Her attention came to me. “Battie is with them.”
Battle?
It’d been hours, but…
He was in London.
How was he here?
“I called him, luv,” Fitzy told me.
That explained that.
But…shit.
Battle was going to be flipped out, and I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.