Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
The woman realized the danger too late. Her eyes went wide and she tried to duck back into her apartment. Sergei caught the door before it could shut. “You will tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know.” She dove for the phone.
He ripped it out of her hands. He closed her apartment door behind him and locked it, the sound of the bolt sliding home a click of finality. He needed to find his Olivia, and this woman was the key to doing so. “Now, now. We’re having such a nice chat. Let’s not end it so soon, da?”
* * *
After getting Hadley fed, dressed, and set up playing in the grass in the backyard, Olivia turned to Cillian. “What do we need to talk about?” Was he already regretting the sex last night? She really, really hoped not, because it had been quite possibly the single hottest night of her life. Even with everything else going on around them, she wanted more. He looked so serious, her heart lurched. “What’s going on?”
“I need you to hear me out before you react. Can you trust me enough to do that?”
Nothing good starts out this way. She did her best to quell her knee-jerk reaction. He hadn’t done anything to make her question him up to this point. The least she could do was give him the benefit of the doubt for a single conversation. She held her breath and nodded.
He didn’t seem any more reassured than she did. “You know this is one of my family’s homes, and I’m using their resources to guard us.”
Don’t react. Do not react. Hear him out. “I’m aware.”
“You also know we have a history with the Romanovs.” He held up a hand, obviously reading the distress she could feel working through her. “I’m not plotting or planning or going to use you against them. Breathe. There’d be no damn point of getting you out of town if I was asshole enough to dangle you like bait in front of Dmitri Romanov. That’s not what I’m saying.”
Her fear took hold of her vocal cords. “Why not? It’d be a smart thing to do, and you’d probably be a hero to the O’Malleys.”
His brows slanted down. “Sweetheart, I don’t need to be a damn hero for anyone. I can be a cold bastard sometimes, but if you missed the fact that I care about your contrary ass, you’re being intentionally thick.” He shook his head. “What I’m asking you is permission to give my family the heads-up that the Romanovs are in town and gunning for us.”
Permission. She waited, but he didn’t say anything else—anything beyond the fact that he cared about her too much to use her as bait or leverage, and that he was asking her before he so much as talked to his family about a very real threat that she had brought to their front doorstep. Olivia Rashidi, you are an idiot. She cleared her throat. “That’s it?”
He nodded. “I can’t promise they won’t want more information, but I won’t tell them anything you don’t want me to.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and watched Hadley toddle through the long grass. Someone must be on the payroll to keep this place maintained, because the longer she was here, the more sure she was that this was all a dream. It was too damn good to be true.
Just like the man next to her.
Finally, she huffed out a breath. “Tell them what you think they need to know. As much as I want to stay under the radar, if I’d wanted to keep you and the rest of the O’Malleys out of it, I never should have called you.”
“Olivia.” He grabbed her hand. From the look on his face, he wanted to pull her into his arms, but he glanced at Hadley and just squeezed instead. “I’m glad you called. Never think otherwise.”
How could she argue with him when he was looking at her like that?
She couldn’t.
She opened her mouth to say…God, she wasn’t even sure…but her phone chose that moment to ring. With a frown, she hurried over to where she’d left it inside the screened porch. It was a Boston number, but not one she recognized. “Hello?”
“Is this Olivia Rashidi?” A woman’s voice, somehow managing to be both apologetic and official at the same time.
What the hell? “Yes?”
“We have you listed as Deborah Richards’s emergency contact. Does that sound right?”
She blindly reached for the doorframe as the room went sideways on her. Mrs. Richards. “Is she okay? What’s going on?”
“There was an attack last night—a home invasion. I don’t have the specifics, but she’s in the hospital right now.” The woman paused, as if realizing just how cold she sounded. “She’s going to be okay. She’s suffering from several broken bones and a few other minor injuries, but she should make a full recovery.”