Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 136048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136048 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“So, wait . . . You’re not asking me to marry you?”
“No, doll. Not yet,” he says with a smirk. “And besides, if I were, you wouldn’t need clarification. You’d know.”
“We’re standing on a fucking waterfall. You’re holding my hands and looking at me as though you can’t live without me. Not to mention, when you had me move into your place, it’s not as though you really asked nicely. You just showed up ready to start packing, so the fact that I tend to jump to conclusions is basically your fault. You’re the one who conditioned me to expect the unexpected.”
Knight gives me a blank stare. “Are you done?”
I shrug. “I mean, I could keep going, but I suppose I could also be done.”
“Good, because like I said, I have to ask you something,” he says, his hand slipping inside his pocket and making my heart race just a little faster, but when he pulls out a familiar canister of pills, my heart races for a whole new reason. “I know you haven’t been taking your pills, doll. I don’t want the bullshit or the denial. I saw you wash it down the kitchen drain last week. I’m not angry. I’m not going to jump down your throat. I just want to know what’s going on.”
Well, fuck.
I take the little canister out of his hands, guilt washing through me. “You’re right. I wasn’t taking them, only for a little while,” I tell him. “However, I achieved what I wanted, and since then, I’ve been back on the meds train. I’m good now.”
His brows furrow, and he’s looking at me as though I’m legit crazy. “What are you talking about? What the hell were you trying to achieve?”
I cringe and reluctantly pull away from him. “You’re gonna judge.”
“I swear, doll. I just need to know what’s going on with you.”
I nod and take a shaky breath. “After Dr. McKullan and Anders were killed, I was spiraling. I didn’t know how to fix things—or even where to start. I had this fleeting thought that the best way to take out a psychopath is by hitting him with another.”
“You’re losing me, doll. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“I stopped taking my pills in the hopes that my original stalker might make a return and tell me what I needed to do.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. “And what happened?”
“Just what I thought would happen,” I tell him, feeling hesitant. “It took a minute for the meds to clear out of my system, but once they did, he came back, and he told me that the only way to truly stop Elias was to kill him. Otherwise, he’s just going to keep coming back.”
His gaze softens. “Harper—”
“Don’t give me that pitying tone,” I tell him. “He told me what I needed to know, and the second he disappeared again, I started taking my meds. I haven’t missed one since.”
“Doll . . .”
“I’m okay, really,” I tell him, stepping back into him and pushing up onto my tippy-toes to get closer, sensing his This is dangerous speech coming on. “I have no plans to go back on that. I’ve been doing much better, and I’m annoyed at myself for taking such a huge step backward. I’m sorry for not being open with you about that, but it’s over now, and I promise, it’s not going to happen again. I don’t want you worrying about me.”
Knight offers me an encouraging smile, but it doesn’t meet his eyes, and despite telling him not to worry, I know that’s not going to happen. “Okay,” he finally says, wrapping his arms around me. “If you say you’re doing okay, then I’ll take your word for it. But don’t be annoyed if you find me checking up on you if I feel you’re starting to slip.”
“I won’t,” I tell him, pressing a kiss to his lips. “You wouldn’t be the man I love if you weren’t checking in on me.”
“Good,” he says. “Now, how do you feel about going for a swim?”
“Huh? I offered a beach day, and you wanted to be one with the twigs,” I remind him, just in case he’d forgotten. “We’ll never make it back to your truck, out to the beach, and then back home before Jonah gets there with the girls. Maybe we could take the girls tomorrow. Assuming they’re not too grumpy, seeing as how I intend to keep them up until the wee hours of the morning.”
Knight laughs before scooping his arm beneath my knees and lifting me against his chest. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he says, backing up from the waterfall as a wicked gleam lights his dark eyes.
“No,” I say, figuring it out way too late, trying to scramble out of his arms, but the fucker is way too strong. “Don’t even think about it.”