Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
But I’m not the daughter.
I’m not even a Turner. I’m useless to him. I’m not the one he wants in a white dress. He shouldn’t be forcing me to mar—
Don’t say it. Don’t say that word.
I straighten up from the sink and exhale shakily, deciding something.
I’m going to tell him the truth.
That’s the only way. He needs to know I’m not Peyton, and forcing me to do what he wants me to do isn’t going to get him what he wants. He’s wasting his time with me. He’s wasting his… shooter friend’s time as well. Killing Brecken Turner over me, the daughter of the nanny and a ranch hand, isn’t going to get him his revenge.
I’m the wrong girl.
As I walk to the door, I know there’s every chance that once I tell him, he may kill me and Peyton’s brother anyway before going after the real Peyton, but it’s a chance I have to take. Somehow I get to the door and manage to open it, and there he is. All towering and broad-shouldered, a figure to be reckoned with, standing at the end of the hallway leading to the restrooms, waiting for me.
But he’s not standing alone; he’s got someone with him.
A cop.
Right there. Right by his side. And they’re absorbed in a conversation. So much so that they haven’t yet noticed me. Not even when I start walking toward them.
Slowly.
One foot in front of the other.
The cop—the sheriff—is the one talking while my kidnapper remains silent. He has his arms folded across his chest as he listens, and to most, he may appear bored and aloof. But somehow I know he’s not. He’s annoyed. If that pulse in his jaw is anything to go by. How strange that I somehow know him, too, even though we only met two days ago.
Finally, his focus shifts, his dark eyes home in on me, and I stumble slightly with the force of his stare.
It’s powerful and heavy. Thick and hot.
His eyes move. They go from the top of my head to my feet, all in one go, in a hurry. As if he doesn’t want to miss anything. But once he’s done that, taken me in as a whole, he goes slowly. He stares at me deliberately. He spends a lot of time on my neck, the base of my throat, and I wonder if he’s thinking about his fingers wrapped around it from this morning.
Before he moves on to my chest, which is trembling with my racing breaths.
He watches me breathe for a long time, as if he’s trying to learn how to do it himself. As if he’s forgotten how to take the air in, and maybe he has because I haven’t seen his chest move even once all this time. And when I’m just about to reach him, his gaze drops down to my thighs. I don’t know what he sees down there except meaty flesh, but whatever it is, it makes him unfold his arms and finally turn to me.
It makes him fist his hands by his sides.
At last, my walk down the hallway ends, and I come to a stop a few feet away from him. I don’t have to wonder if every girl who takes a walk down the aisle feels what I’m feeling in this moment. Or if every guy who waits for her at the end feels what he’s feeling. I already know they don’t.
I already know that a girl isn’t supposed to feel this intense rage and a man isn’t supposed to do this for revenge.
Intense rage at the fact that he made me, forced me, to wear a white dress, while he himself is dressed in all black like this is his funeral. Like his life is ending rather than mine. And then he has the audacity to look at me like that. To stare at me in a way that made my skin all heated. That branded me. Without my permission.
He has the audacity to imprint himself on my body without my consent.
Just when his tightly clenched jaw moves and he opens his mouth to say something, I turn toward the sheriff and blurt out, “Help.”
My sudden plea shocks the sheriff.
It shocks me too. I didn’t know I was going to do that until I did. And now that I have, I can’t go back. I have to take a chance, especially when it’s right there. Only a couple of feet away. Turning to him completely, I grab the sheriff’s arm as if it’s my lifeline, and Jesus Christ, it may very well be. “I need help. You need to help me. I’ve been kidnapped. H-he kidnapped me. This… this man, he kidnapped me.”
The sheriff’s frown thickens as his eyes jerk over to him behind me, and I grab his sleeve in urgency. “No, look at me. Look at me!” My frantic voice brings the sheriff’s attention back to me, even though he still looks confused. “Whatever he told you, it’s a lie, okay? I don’t know what you were t-talking about but he’s lying. He’s a liar. He just got out of prison. He’s on parole and you need to… You need to arrest him, call his parole officer.”