Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
“I’m not marrying you, asshole,” she called to the camera.
“Ambrie.” Dobbs almost wailed her name. “Don’t make him angry. Never make him angry. You can see the kind of man he is. Just marry him and you can live your life. He’ll want you to handle the money. You’re good at your job. You could make him a mint. I told him how good you are.”
Ambrielle loved numbers, but it was more than that. She had an intuition when it came to investments. She had made hundreds of thousands of dollars for her clients. “Do you really think I’m going to help a man who murdered my parents? What’s wrong with you?”
She shoved Dobbs away from her, or tried to. Her movements were clumsy. The drug was still in her system, making her limbs heavy and slow. She had no idea where she was. No one knew where she was. No help was coming. If she didn’t save herself, she would be forced into the chapel to marry Walker Thompson.
Dobbs had to steady her by catching both of her arms. She didn’t look at him, but instead looked desperately around the room in the hopes of finding a weapon. Anything that could be used as a weapon. She tore herself away from Dobbs and stumbled to the desk, doing her best not to stare at the fountain pen. That looked like a perfect weapon. Where could she conceal it on her wedding dress? It wasn’t as if she had pockets in the formfitting designer dress. It clung to her curves. And then there was the letter opener. It wasn’t super sharp, but it did have a point.
She reached for it, and a fist hit her arm so hard for a moment she thought her bone had shattered. Walker Thompson wrapped his fingers around her throat, nearly lifting her off her feet. She caught at his shoulders to try to ease the hold he had on her, but he only tightened his fingers in warning.
“What the fuck do you think you’re going to do with that?”
She couldn’t tell him she was going to stick it right through his eye if she got the chance. For one thing, he was strangling her, and she was about to pass out. For another, she didn’t want him dosing her with more of whatever he’d given her to get her ready for their wedding. She tried to hang limply and not fight, but self-preservation was strong. She kicked at him and used both hands to grip his wrists when she began to see spots and her lungs couldn’t get any air at all.
He flung her away from him. Ambrie hit the edge of the desk and then the floor. Walker bent over her, gripping her hair to drag her head up. “You had better cooperate if you know what’s good for you.”
He hit her twice on her left side, just under her eye. She was still trying desperately to drag in air, so there was no twisting away from the blows or the one that followed, his foot connecting with her hip. He straightened, his hands going to his tie.
“Clean her up and get her ready. I want her out in five minutes, compliant. You understand me? She doesn’t do what she’s supposed to do, you’re dead, Dobbs.” He looked over Dobbs’ shoulder to the two men guarding the door. “Get her up, Gleb.” He stalked out, slamming the door behind him.
Ambrielle didn’t bother to try to sit up. Even trying to get air past the painful swelling in her throat hurt too much. It took all her effort just to try to breathe. When hard hands caught at her and yanked her up, she couldn’t get her legs to work at first. It was humiliating to have to hold on to the man who had shot her father, especially when he was grinning so openly at her.
“Your future husband is not a patient man,” Gleb said.
She avoided looking at his face by staring down at the shoe mark on the beautiful nude tulle, with its gorgeous 3D silver embroidery. Laughter bubbled up. Nothing like having her future husband’s shoe on her hip.
“You’re hysterical,” Dobbs said.
She pointed to the shoe print. “At least it isn’t on my ass.” She tried to say it, but her throat was so swollen she mostly croaked.
Gleb and his partner got her messed-up humor. They laughed at her insanity. Gleb steadied her and gestured toward the small bathroom. “Denis, get a cold washcloth for her face. Sit in the chair, Ambrie.”
He all but put her in the chair, so she didn’t protest or try to fight him. She was too aware Thompson had told him to make her amenable. She wanted Gleb to think Thompson had taken the fight out of her with his rough handling. Little did they know that he had only made her angrier and all the more determined to kill him. She was far past wanting to get away. She didn’t believe she would, but she wanted to kill Walker Thompson, and after him, Gleb and his partner, Denis. If she got them, then she’d go after Dobbs.