Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122440 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 612(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Both were easy solutions. “Those are good questions. I think I’m torturing myself. I know sooner or later I’ll have to pick up and deal with my parents.”
“That’s who is continuously calling in the middle of the night? Your parents?” He rubbed his chin on the top of her head. Strands of her hair caught in the rough stubble along his jaw, tying them together.
“Yes.” She whispered the answer, ashamed of being the senator’s daughter. Others believed him innocent. She knew in her heart he was guilty. Worse, she knew he didn’t feel remorse. He felt entitled to do whatever he wished to women, and for reasons Harlow couldn’t fathom, her mother reinforced that opinion by covering up for his disgusting crimes.
“I would like to take care of it for you.”
There was something in his voice that had her tipping back her head to look up at him. He sounded infinitely gentle. Comforting. Yet…lethal. He didn’t exactly ask her a question, yet there was a questioning note in his voice. It was that single lethal intent that told her he might be asking, but he had already decided what he was going to do.
“He’s a senator, Wilder. A United States senator. He might be in what looks like trouble now, but he has a tremendous amount of power. He always has. You can’t get on his radar. I appreciate it so much, more than you’ll ever know, that you would go out of your way to help me, but I don’t want that. He would do everything in his power to annihilate you. Destroy your reputation. If you have enemies, and it is clear you do, he would expose you to those enemies. He is absolutely ruthless.”
It sucked that she had to admit those things to anyone. The senator was her father. His blood ran in her veins. He was a despicable man. A criminal. And he would destroy Wilder.
Wilder ducked his head to run his nose along hers in a gentle caress. “Baby, you persist in seeing me as sweet. I’m only sweet to you. I’ll only ever be sweet to you and our children. The rest of the world I’ll leave alone, as long as they leave us alone. The senator is not leaving you alone. What that means is, I need to make sure he knows you’re off-limits.” His lips brushed the tip of her nose and trailed fire to the corner of her mouth.
Her stomach muscles contracted. She felt a melting sensation in the region of her heart. Still…“Wilder, I can’t say enough how much it matters that you care, but you have to listen to me when I tell you how dangerous it would be to cross him.”
His mouth brushed the opposite corner of her mouth, and then he lifted his head so the intensity of his crystalline gaze burned into hers. “What do you think I do? I’m not one of the agents who recruit others from foreign countries to aid us. I’m the man they send out when the head of a terrorist cell or cartel needs to be quietly taken out. That’s my job, Harlow. That’s what I do, and I’m damned good at it.”
She found it difficult to meet that burning gaze, but she forced herself to do it. She wasn’t going to back down. “If you’re so good at it, Wilder, why would you and Rainier think Blom might have arranged for you to be ambushed?” She did her best to sound challenging, but it came out as an apology and rather pathetic-sounding because she despised hurting his feelings. She knew she was implying she didn’t think he was good at his job, and that wasn’t nice, but she had to find a way to save his life when he wasn’t taking the danger seriously.
To her utter consternation, he threw back his head and laughed. Really laughed. The sound was rich and warm and hit her in places she hadn’t thought too much about in years. She loved the sound of his laughter, even if she was afraid he was laughing at her.
“Baby.” He brushed a kiss across her lips, nearly making her heart skip a beat. “I know too many secrets and have too many skills for Blom to be comfortable with me alive. It’s the same with Rainier and many of the other men he’s employed. It just so happens my particular set of skills is very scary to someone like Blom if he thinks he’s losing control of me.”
She studied his face. He had a man’s face, but he looked young until you looked in his eyes. Then he was something altogether different. She moistened her lips. “You kill people.”
“I am sanctioned to kill our enemies,” he corrected.
She wasn’t about to condemn him. She’d seen the terror Shabina had gone through. No ordinary man could have saved her when she was a teenager and again when she was grown. Rainier had done that. Zale and Rainier had saved Vienna. Sam and his friends had saved Stella and her circle of friends, including Harlow.