Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 88270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
But as I'm tiptoeing towards the stairs, heart still pounding, I run straight into Carolyn’s mother-in-law, Frances. She is standing there like a ghost in the shadows. She looks older than the photos, lines etched deep around her eyes, and I suspect she's old enough to see through ruses, through me. But she's more concerned with what she has obviously seen in the conservatory. Her gaze is sharp with revulsion. She shakes her head disapprovingly.
"Must you? You disgust me," she says, voice low and cutting, before she walks away stiffly.
I really can’t endure it—another sour, unpleasant encounter piling on. I decide to head back to my room for solace, hide under that wonderful cloud-like duvet and pretend this is all just a bad dream.
But just as I put my foot on the grand curving staircase, ready to flee upstairs and hide in my room, a man in a dour black suit, I assume he is Mr. Carson, the butler, appears from a side passage, his face a mask of impassivity, uniform starched to perfection.
"Mr. Bessant has requested your presence in his study, Mrs. Carolyn," he says, tone clipped, eyes unreadable.
"Now?" I ask warily. My voice is small like a whisper, stomach dropping like lead.
He nods once, with absolutely no sympathy. Clearly, he doesn’t care for Carolyn either. Except for the gardener, everybody else seems to despise Carolyn. No wonder she wanted to run away. I have no choice but to agree, but I'm not sure where the study is—another gap in Carolyn's briefing—so I ask the butler to lead the way, my words hesitant, hanging in the air.
His eyes flash for a split second. Suspicion, maybe? No doubt Carolyn has never requested such a thing of him, but his face remains completely impassive as he turns on his heel and leads the way, his footsteps echoing ahead.
He knocks formally on a heavy oak door at the end of a corridor, and a deep, commanding male voice calls out for us to enter. Blake’s voice sends a shiver down my spine.
"Thank you, Carson. I'll take it from here," I say to the butler, dismissing him with what I hope is Carolyn's cool authority.
Then I push the door open and step into the lion’s den.
Chapter Nine
BLAKE
The study's heavy oak door stands between me and the rest of the house, a barrier I've come to rely on, its polished surface reflecting the late summer sunlight that slants through the tall sash windows behind my desk. Curiosity got the better of me earlier, and I've been watching her through the cameras all afternoon—discreet feeds tucked into the corners of the estate.
I wanted to see if she'd truly ruined herself with those procedures, carved her face into something unrecognizable, or inflated her breasts beyond repair. From the grainy footage, there seems to be no drastic horror show, but subtle changes—bigger boobs, a fuller face, a slight change to her walk. Details that stir something unwelcome in me, a flicker of heat I shove down. But it remains the need to see it in person, up close.
It's always annoying having her enter my space, the one corner of the estate that's mine alone, free from her manipulations and moods, but something I can’t put my finger on nags at me. It wasn’t watching her interaction with the gardener—him pulling her close, his mouth on her neck like he owned it. No, that left me cold and made me realize again that I need to take action to end our marriage. Of course, I knew she started that little fling out of spite about a year ago, right around the time she decided to completely turn our marriage to ice, her way of jabbing at me without saying a word.
And honestly, I didn't care then, don't now; let it continue if it keeps her occupied. Better the gardener fucking her in the house than her sneaking out to meet men, stirring up scandals that could splash across the society pages and drag the Bessant name through the mud. But seeing them together has put the last nail in the coffin of our marriage for me.
I know I’ve got to solve this problem soon, but not right now. I've got enough on my plate—one big deal brewing in Midtown, and another just outside my grasp that I should already have caught and closed.
I know she has entered, but I deliberately don't look up right away, keeping my eyes on the screen, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat. I gesture toward the stack of papers on the edge of the desk—financial allowances, checks to sign for her endless spending.
"Please sign those," I say curtly, my tone cold and clipped. "There should be enough there for you to spend for the rest of the quarter."
She heads over, and to my surprise, she's quiet—no snarky comeback, no huff about how insulting it is to be summoned like staff. She would have had some sort of snap back, usually a barb about my control over her independence, but today, nothing. It is so unusual, so strange that I raise my gaze, lifting my head slowly, curiosity pulling at me like a tide.