Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 658(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
The corner of her mouth pulls up in a smile.
“You look like a mafia dude hauling a million bucks in there,” she whispers.
“Delusional. I’d wager this is worth significantly more.”
“Yeah, but why”—she yawns again—“why so serious?”
“Because someone has to stay alert, Nile Queen. You can’t keep your eyes open. Have a nap.” I show her to her seat, putting my hand on her shoulder to guide her down into it so she doesn’t miss.
For a second, I inhale her. No hangover, and there’s no hint of alcohol or anything else.
Just a tired girl and this hint of fruit. Apple?
My nostrils flare.
If it isn’t perfume, it must be her shampoo, and I should absolutely not be fucking smelling her hair.
For a second, she whips around and looks at me.
I press my lips together and nod.
Too fucking close, you dog. What are you doing?
I don’t know. Looking around every corner for imminent disaster, and sniffing for it, too.
It’s in my DNA after a long career. Today I have one job and it’s to get her and the egg to our destination.
Nothing else matters.
Not her mental state, but it will help if she’s rested.
“What’s your deal?” she asks. She must sense I’m off my game.
“Just need a little coffee. I’ll get some when we’re in the air. You, sleep,” I growl again.
The way she smiles and shakes her head cuts me open.
Just a hint of the old, familiar, nosy Cleo Blackthorn, buried under a grown woman on a mission.
Another thought I need to purge from my frazzled brain.
“You’re bossy today. Careful,” she warns, but she doesn’t fight me as she settles into one of the oversized seats and curls up.
I stop the flight attendant and ask her for blankets and pillows. She brings me out a whole armful, and I tuck the pillow under her head.
A lock of silky cinnamon hair slides past my fingers.
Criminally soft.
Again, dripping with that damn apple scent.
Everything about her is softer and sweeter than a lie. It must be the pressure getting to me, that shot of adrenaline going to my head.
Cleo’s not a tiny waif of a woman. She’s not bony.
Still, I think she could be eating more, especially with the task ahead. Another problem to rectify as soon as we’ve touched down in New York.
She uncurls a little as I drape the blanket over her and sit back across from her.
“Mm, that was nice. Surprising,” she mutters. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
As she drifts off, I flag down the flight attendant again and whisper, “Keep her comfortable. Anything she needs, she gets. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the woman says. “We’ll look out for her.”
“Good.”
When I buckle up, I notice she forgot to fix her own seat belt. Sighing, I reach over her to strap her in, grazing the curve of her hip as she moans and shifts in her sleep.
As the jet speeds down the tarmac and positions for takeoff, I try to enjoy the view, the gold clawing through the clouds and the morning shadows below.
I try and I fail.
My traitor eyes keep drifting back to the exhausted, troubled girl across from me. Her lips pout, murmuring something soft and indecipherable.
Something I have no business trying to read, but I do.
It’s not a long flight, just under two hours.
It feels like a lifetime.
Cleo Blackthorn sleeps so fucking peacefully, her hands tucked under her chin and her hair falling over her face.
I’m glued to her so closely through the flight it’s embarrassing.
By the time we’re coasting down for a landing, I’ve never wanted to punch myself more.
This is demented.
I know I shouldn’t be watching her.
I absolutely shouldn’t be the creepy older man before I’m even forty. At thirty-eight, I have two years to go.
I can’t figure out what it is.
This is anything but normal.
The dormant caretaker in me, maybe. The man I had to bury with Charli after she came back to us, eaten up with cancer. Terminal.
How many times did I beg her to work with me before the hammer dropped? To find room in her career, her life, for a daughter and a life with us?
She never listened.
She only came home when she had nowhere else to turn.
Of course, I fucking took her in.
I bled my soul in countless black hours, tending her like a nurse, praying to a God I’m not sure I believe in for a miracle.
I tucked in the thinning mother of my child over her last few months of life. The same woman who never gave me a chance after she decided I wasn’t enough.
I gave her what comfort I could, and I watched the spark fade from her eyes, her skin, her bones.
When it got to be too much and I had to get back to work, I went into debt for a home nurse to fill in the gaps.
I buried the hopes and dreams she killed much earlier. I wrapped my hands around my own throat and strangled the life I couldn’t have.