Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 145(@250wpm)___ 121(@300wpm)
“New coffee?” he’d asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep it.”
Two words. She’d floated on them for days like an idiot.
By the time she turned eighteen, she’d graduated from confused to infatuated to completely, desperately aware. Aware of him as a man. Aware of herself as a woman. Aware of the space between them that felt charged with electricity she didn’t quite understand.
The physical reactions were the worst part. Or the best part. She couldn’t decide.
Her body had developed curves that made Mama buy her shapeless uniforms and lecture her about keeping her hair braided tight. But around Aivan, everything felt too tight, too hot, too much. Every time she found herself in the same room with him, she would feel so inexpicably restless and so shamelessly aching.
And oh, the dreams...
She never quite remembered everything, but she would remember enough that she would wake up either crying for something that wasn’t real. Or blushing so hard because what she had dreamt of was a little too real.
But then...the whispers started.
As his fame grew, so did the rumors swirling around him, with the other servants exchanging excited whispers about the latest news they had heard from this source and that. Models so tall and long-legged they made Sienah feel like shrinking away in comparison. Actresses whose looks were so lovely they were like life-sized dolls. And heiresses who seemed so perfectly posh that Sienah could easily imagine them still acting with grace and poise even in the midst of an alien attack.
Sienah knew she wasn’t helping anyone, least of all herself, by cataloging all the women Aivan dated like they were Pokemon to be collected and their information filed in her mental Pokedex. And yet that was exactly what she found herself doing. She would take note of who he was currently dating, try to figure out what attracted Aivan to the other woman, and later on, why he would break up with her.
Almost like she was strategizing her best moves for attacking—er, attracting—Aivan while at the same time preparing her defensive strategies to make sure that he would have no reason to dump her.
If he were to ever notice her, that was.
And it was a pretty big if, or at least it was so in her Mama’s eyes.
“You’re playing with fire, mija,” Mama warned the night she caught Sienah altering all her cleaning routines to match his schedule. “The master’s son is no ordinary man.”
“I never said anything—”
“You don’t have to,” her mother said with a sigh. “It is all in your eyes, and I do not like it one bit. I’m sorry if this hurts you, but I need you to know what I feel about this...this infatuation—”
“Mama!”
“You can deny it all you want, but we both know the truth.”
In Lynnette’s eyes, she was reaching foolishly for the stars, and while Sienah loved and respected her mother too much to argue about this...
It was when she was alone with her thoughts that she couldn’t help but wonder.
Was it so foolish, really?
Because there was that time when she’d been reaching for a book on the high shelf in the library and he’d appeared behind her, pressing close to pull it down. She’d frozen, overwhelmed by his heat, his scent, the solid wall of his chest barely brushing her back.
“Wuthering Heights?” He’d read the spine, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. “Didn’t picture you as the romantic type.”
“I’m not,” she’d lied, proud when her voice didn’t shake. “It’s for a literature course I’m taking online.”
“You’re in school?”
The surprise in his voice made her turn, which was a mistake because it put her face inches from his chest. She had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
“Part-time. Business administration.”
“So you plan to work once you graduate?” he pressed. “You’re not thinking of marrying and starting your own family?”
If it’s you, Sienah had thought, then you only have to say the word, and I shall be yours.
But since she obviously couldn’t say that—
“I’m not sure what the future holds for me,” she said finally, albeit in a voice that was just a little breathless, just a little tremulous, and all because of the fact that this was the longest conversation she had with him, like, ever. “I just know it won’t hurt to be familiar with how businesses work.”
“How surprisingly...pragmatic.”
His tone was cryptic, and when he nodded at her, she knew she was being politely dismissed, and so she simply nodded back, turned and walked away while her heart raced and ached at the same time.
Why did it feel like something important had just happened?
By nineteen, she’d perfected the art of being essential without being seen. She knew he liked his morning run at 6:15, so she had fresh towels and water waiting. She knew he listened to Mozart when happy and Rachmaninoff when troubled, so she always checked which was playing before entering his space. She knew about his migraines, but she also knew he would rather have everyone at home act as if he wasn’t having them.