Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
His lopsided smile is so perfectly charming that I marvel at his ability to mask his monstrous nature.
“I can make a decent meal for you.” He says it like a reassurance. “I doubt my brother could manage it. He’s never worked at anything a day in his life.”
“You brother still lives here? With your parents?” I try to keep my tone casual, politely interested.
He sees right through me. “Like I said, they’re summering abroad. And no, my brother has his faults, but he has no desire to remain close to our parents. I believe he prefers to spend his time in the Wensleydale lodge. It’s only about a half hour’s drive from here, but it permits him some distance from our mother.”
“You said you left your family behind when you moved to America for college,” I say carefully. “Won’t they want to see you now that you’re back home?”
He scoffs. “If they knew I was here, they’d try to find a way to lock me down and prevent me from leaving. But don’t worry. I paid the staff to keep quiet. They were happy to take an extended holiday.”
“So, you’re not planning to stay.”
I have to get a sense of his plans for me. Does he intend to return to Charleston at some point? It certainly sounds as though he doesn’t want to stay here for long.
He frowns and turns his attention to the fridge. He doesn’t look at me when he replies, “You and I need to come to an understanding before we go back to the States. Meadows is pissed that I fucked off to England without notice, but he’ll have to manage the practice without me for a while. I told him my grandmother had passed away. I just didn’t specify when.”
He keeps his focus on finding the pans he needs rather than looking at me.
“You think I’ll turn you in for what you did to me,” I surmise quietly.
In profile, I note the downward twist of his sensual lips, as though he’s bitten into something sour.
“I don’t intend to go to prison.” His voice is smooth and cultured as ever, entirely unruffled except for his frown. “You need some time to process what you saw. I understand that. It’s regrettable that I had to bring you here, but it was the best option.”
“You think kidnapping me was the best option.” It’s a dull, flat statement. I have to keep the shrill accusation from my tone if I’m going to reason with him. He has to hear how insane this is when I put it in clear, plain language.
He places several fat sausages and four rashers of thick bacon onto a hot pan, and the meat instantly begins to sizzle. He continues to focus on cooking, his movements smooth and utterly casual, as though this is a normal morning and nothing is troubling him.
“You don’t have to continue with your menial job to make ends meet anymore,” he reasons. “You can spend all your time focusing on your art. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can give that to you, Abigail. I have given it to you. You’re free to reach your full potential now.”
“You stole my phone and quit my job for me.” It takes all my willpower to remain calm and rational. “You made my friends believe that I’m willingly on vacation with you. But you drugged me, and you’re holding me against my will. That’s not freedom, Dane. That’s captivity.”
He shrugs, a physical dismissal of my words. “You’ll be much happier now. You just need some time to adjust. I know what you saw upset you. I never intended to frighten you.”
I can’t hold back my bitter laugh. “Didn’t you? You terrified me when you put on that skull mask and assaulted me in the dark. You threatened me with a knife.”
“Just like you told me in your fantasies.” He bites out the words, clearly agitated. “I acted out your deepest desires.”
I breathe through my nose and suppress the urge to vomit.
He knows all of my secrets because he positioned himself as GentAnon.
“I confessed those fucked-up fantasies because I thought it was a safe space to express them. I thought I was talking to someone anonymous. Someone who understood me. I trusted you.”
I told my illicit pen pal my most vulnerable secrets, and I’d felt secure in purging my inner darkness with him.
Instead, I made myself a target for a sadistic psychopath.
“How did you find my screenname?” I ask through numb lips.
My mind spins as I try to piece together what’s happened to me. How long has Dane been watching me?
“You said we met at the bar before you came into the café for the first time. That was a few weeks before GentAnon messaged me. How did you find my erotica?”
He cracks an egg over the pan, a little too sharply. “You don’t want to know that.”