Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 361(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Me? I scan the room, searching for Arlo, but I don’t see him. I do catch sight of Soren though. He is the one commanding the room. You can tell by the way people appear to orbit around him, how their gazes repeatedly flick to him, even though he’s not paying them any attention.
“So, what are we doing?” I question.
“Do you see him anywhere?” she asks in return.
“No.” And after another scan of the room, I notice everyone here seems to be coupled up except Soren, who stands on his own with no one on his arm.
“Okay, he should be here somewhere. We’re technically late.”
We get a few curious looks as I follow her through the crowd. As we get closer to the bar, I note a familiar woman.
“Cora, isn’t it?” she says, and the man behind her flicks his gaze to me. He stands with his hand on her hip in a claiming way. “I haven’t seen Arlo tonight. Did you come with him?”
“Hi, I’m Cressida. So nice to meet you.” Cressida jumps in at the perfect time and holds out her hand to Lilith, who looks at it, confused, before raising her gaze to mine.
“Arlo doesn’t know you’re here, does he?” Lilith asks me.
“No,” I say.
She smiles at that, but the man behind her is eyeing us skeptically.
“How much fun that’s going to be. And it will piss Soren off, which is one of my favorite things to do. Apart from fucking my husband, that is.”
Cressida coughs, but she doesn’t seem insulted that Lilith didn’t shake her hand.
“Arlo’s here,” Lilith’s husband announces.
I turn to face the door, where I see Arlo walking in with a woman next to him, and he has his hand on her lower back. My stomach drops. His gaze sweeps the room until it lands on me. His hand immediately drops from the woman’s back, and he leaves her standing there as he stalks in my direction. His dark eyes are trained on me.
“Cora, what are you doing here?”
“Who is that?” I ask him, peering behind him, where the woman stands. That’s when I realize I’ve seen her before.
“She’s Soren’s sister,” he tells me.
“Evil bitch,” Lilith comments, drawing all our gazes to her. Her husband just smirks.
“Lilith,” Arlo says, tone disapproving.
“What? She is.” Lilith shrugs. “Is she trying to get her claws into you now that she can’t have what’s mine?”
Arlo ignores her question and turns back to me. “Cora, how did you get in?”
“I was invited.”
“Only wives are invited,” he says.
I guess that explains all the couples.
“Oops,” Cressida says.
“Hello, Cressida. I’d like to see your invite,” a dark voice says from behind us. Soren stands there, holding out his hand as he glares at Cressida.
She lifts her hand and brushes it behind her ear. “I think it got lost in the mail,” she replies with a grin.
His gaze flicks to me, then back to her. Someone wraps a hand around my arm and begins to pull me away, and I look up at Arlo.
“Are you married?” I ask him, and then I hear someone almost choke on their drink, but I don’t look back as he ushers me away from the group, his hand burning a hole through me.
“No,” he says without hesitation.
“You said only wives were invited, and you walked in with a woman,” I remind him, in case he forgot, because that was a stupid thing to do—especially if he broke into my house to sleep in my bed. Yet, here he is, walking in with another woman.
“As I said, that’s Soren’s sister. She needed a lift, and I obliged.”
“Soren couldn’t collect his own sister?” I throw back at him.
He goes to speak but stops, and a slow and steady smirk curves his lips before he asks, “Are you jealous, sweetheart?”
I pull my arm free from his grasp, annoyed that he insists on calling me that. I hate it.
Arlo leans in close, careful not to touch me, as he says, “Nothing to be jealous of. I only have eyes for you.”
“Who else are you fucking?”
“I told you, no one.”
I cross my arms over my chest and glare at him.
“I was told not to use a certain word around you or your”—I wave my hand around, indicating to the crowd—“friends.”
“I don’t have many friends.”
“The word starts with an H,” I tell him in a soft voice.
His eyes spark, and he looks back to where Cressida is still standing with Soren, the two of them going toe-to-toe with each other. I wonder what that’s all about.
“Are you referring to what you asked me in my bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t, Cora. I would hate to end this thing between us earlier than anticipated.”
“You have a timeframe with me, do you?”
“Yes, I do.”
I raise a brow. “And what is that? Care to fill me in?”
He simply smiles in return.