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There’s no reply, as I edge closer, peering into the dark.
Stupid white girl.
“But Tessa, you can’t tell anyone,” Wren whispers urgently. “Not even Saint. Especially not Saint.
I'm going to assume it's because his father and brother are behind this, but still nothing has pointed us towards Saint. That would be some "Get Out" level twist.
‘You can’t tell anyone… Especially not Saint’. What does she mean? Why can’t anyone know she’s really alive? How can I keep this from him?
You shouldn't! Don't fuck it up again!
And now she’s not dead… Everything in me wants to tell him. But I promised her. Pinky swore. And until I know what’s going on—how this impossible situation has come to be—I owe her my loyalty, even if it’s eating me up inside.
Ok but after, you have to tell him!!
“Our endowment is invested in the markets,” Hugh explains. “I don’t follow the details, but since it was all set up before I took the reins… I’m guessing a tidy sum is tied up in Ashford shares. My father likes to keep his friends close, and their profits closer.”
Hugh goes back to seeming a little suspect.
Acting like she could have been discovered at any moment… I wonder now if she thought she was being followed.
This all calls into question who was following Tessa and threatening her and attacking her because of the secret societies in the first book, if the conspiracy is about the science.
It’s the Alzheimer’s drug, Tessa,” she says, looking stricken. “The results from the trials were all faked. The drugs don’t work.”
Called it!! Kind of. I'm just glad we've finally got our first confirmation.
“They said that if I ever revealed the truth, then they’d get to you. They would show you the inside of that cell, the way they did to me. And they wouldn’t use the drugs, either. They’d make sure you remembered every single moment.”
I didn't even register this "twist" at first because I've known this all along but. I need that Leela gif where everyone else reacts and then she has the delayed gasp.
Somehow, Saint has given life to the desires I’d only ever dreamed about; taken my breathless fantasies and made them real. Made me more real: A woman who pursues her own pleasure, and claims it without shame; discovering more about my own thrilling, sensual needs with every passing day.
Yes he's been incredibly healthy. So how's about you stop lying to him?!
“Yes. It’s time, Wren. Tell him everything you told me, about Ashford, and the drug trials. I’m not going to keep this secret from him. I love him, and he needs to know the truth.”
Good, ok, but whenever a character does what i want, author makes something bad happen. So what'll it be this time?!
“The drugs didn’t work?” Tessa translates. Her sister nods. “Not the way they needed to, to continue the research. And definitely not enough to move to human trials. I thought maybe the data set was corrupted somehow, or they were outdated results, so I flagged it for my boss at the lab. And then everything happened…” she says, her face turning shadowed. “And I knew that it wasn’t a mistake. They faked the results and moved ahead with the human trials, and they needed me to keep quiet.”
Ok so if I'm Saint, I'd still be a little "uh, objection, your honor, speculative." I mean, everything else we've seen, it's probably accurate, but Wren is taking some leaps.
“Even if a medication only shows, say, a 10% improvement in some patients, sometimes that’s enough to justify making it available to everyone.
Another great point, so why all the smoke and mirrors and secret and conspiracies and kidnappings??? If the drug is just not as powerful as they hope, if it's not actively hurting people, then you'd still make a profit, might as well be honest. Ashford's whole scheme of silencing the scientists looks... dumb.
“I don’t have anything. I told you, I reported it to Valerie. My system access was revoked, right after, she said it was a tech mix-up and they’d sort it all out, and then the party happened… When I got back to work, my server access was restricted, but by then, I didn’t care. I had other things on my mind,”
Where does the fucking tattoo factor into all this??
No matter what happens next, I won’t let anyone hurt her. She’s mine, and I’m going to keep her safe. Whatever the price.
Yeah, i have a feeling it's Saint that might be in danger.
I look around as we get out, confused. This place screams money, and from what I’ve seen of Phillip, he’s more of a worn-out tennis shoes and threadbare sweaters kind of guy.
They must be paying Phillip well to keep quiet... Just this swanky apartment would convince me he can't be trusted. It would fit too, from a narrative arc: the rich guy you would think can't be trusted is the good guy, the poor scientist who's only supposed to care about data integrity is going to be bad.
Phillip looks bashful, handing her a soda. “It’s a corporate rental, Ashford is footing the bill. They needed me down here in London in a hurry, you see, to take over as head researcher after Valerie… After, well…”
Ok....... I've got my eye on you, boy!
I howl in pleasure,
Do you though? From where I'm sitting, a howl is not sexy.
“Say it again,” Saint demands, and when I open my eyes, I find him staring at me with a ragged desperation in his gaze. A man clinging to the edge of self-control. “Say I’m the only one.”
The smut is good, the dirty talk is A-plus, it's just the roaring and howling i could do without.
No, the truth is, I’d rather build my own empire than sit back, and wait for some man to inherit his.” “Your party-planning business,” I nod. “Right. That.” I see a flash of a cryptic smile on Imogen’s face, but then it’s smoothed away as Annabelle joins us,
What the fuck is Imogen hiding?!
“You’re so nice,” Annabelle slurs, as she obediently gulps the water.
She is indeed being very nice. I'm sure this is to get some needed background info, stir some shit, but it's really nice seeing one woman taking care of another woman.
“Annabelle?” I say, louder. “Do you know what happened to Wren?” “Someone took her…” she slurs. “Was dark. Didn’t see who. Sorry…. ‘Swhy I invited you. Thought you could get them… But you can’t,” she adds softly. “Nobody can stop them. It’s jus’ the way things are…”
The plot thickens? We're back on secret societies again, i guess... What might this mean for the science aspect?
“He has balls, I’ll tell you that,” Wren rolls her eyes. “Came on strong with me, and I almost fell for it, too—until I heard he already had a girlfriend.”
Information that really would have helped Tessa rule him out... Thanks, sis!
“She never needed to go through it,” I repeat slowly. “None of us did. I mean God, faking her own death? Who does that?” I demand. “Wren could have come to me, explained what was going on. I would have helped her! I would have done anything for her. At the very least, she could have sent me some kind of sign that she was OK. Instead… Instead, we all had to go through hell, thinking we’d lost her forever!”
There you go, anger is justified. Way to feel emotions appropriately. This writing is not awful, in bits and pieces.
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I step into the cozy kitchen and watch as she bustles making tea. “I didn’t come here for scones!” I finally blurt. “What the fuck, Wren?”
Yeah, I'd be even angrier watching her here merrily baking scones and making tea.
She’s not the one who truly deserves my wrath. No, that’s better saved for the ones who are responsible for all this grief and pain. Whoever kidnapped her. Whoever threatened me.
Yeah ok but this whole interlude must be for some reason.
“It turns out, it’s easy to get a fake ID,”
Sure, once in England, but how did you get a fake passport to get from the States to England in the first place??
“And when I saw you’d gone to Oxford… Well, I had to get my hands on a fake passport, too. I knew you were doing something boneheaded, going back there.”
Oh, like it was so easy!
Someone’s found her. They’re here.
Of course, because both sisters are there. Because, of course.
“Oww…” She lets out a cry of pain, landing hard and crumpling to the ground. “My ankle!”
Fucking white people!
The driver leaps out. It’s Saint.
Oh! Convenient!
I bite back a howl.
That must be really hard.
Someone came to kill Wren. They knew where we were hiding her. But how?
Gee, i dunno. Who did you blab the location to??
“And you told him where we were hiding you!” I exclaim, chilled. “Remember, you made that joke about Farleigh-Under-Lyme? I’m betting the minute we left his place, he reported everything to his boss at Ashford.”
Ok, at least everyone's not being obtuse in this one.
We wait until after ten p.m., when Saint says the offices will be pretty much empty, then take a cab over the Ashford HQ.
Right, but it's not like anybody can see the visitor log, and know that Saint is there, suspiciously right after his girlfriend was chased through the woods by a gunman. Yes, very inconspicuous.
They start to bicker over the mystery order, as Saint and I approach the elevators. When we’re sure that the guard is distracted by our little pizza delivery ploy, we veer off, diving into the stairwell instead.
Ha! The old dozen pizzas delivery ploy! I'm begrudgingly impressed.
“Babe, I’m hungry.” “Then we’ll go get you something to eat.” “But it needs to be gluten-free, and organic,” I keep up the act, as we walk back through the lab, the guard’s eyes on us every step of the way. “And you know how my tummy doesn’t like anything that’s even touched a processed grain!”
Ok that was fun.
“This is what they’re doing,” he says, low and angry. “Giving good people false hope. Exploiting their misery, just to get even richer and more powerful, while they set the whole field back. It’s disgusting.”
WHO FUCKING KNEW someone would write a steamy mystery novel with the key conflict being intellectual and scientific integrity?!?!?! Who said science was boring?!?!
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Robert clears his throat, pushing back his shock of blonde hair. “Ah, yes. Tessa,” he nods, looking weirdly nervous to see her. Clearly, my parents have already been complaining about my choice of partners.
Or he's the one who sent the gunman...
How could you betray Edward’s memory, by turning into everything he’d hate?
There's a lot of actual stakes here for Saint. His brother's legacy, his own inheritance, his family's complicity, his girlfriend and her sister counting on him to do the right thing. A lot of conduct for him and he's constantly doing the honorable thing even though it has to hurt like hell. This is not awful writing.
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He pulls into the flow of traffic, and then hits the brakes as a white van cuts in front of us, pulling up to the curb. Saint sounds the horn, as some burly guys leap out of the van, ignoring us.
They're going to get Wren!
“It’s like the invitation for the first party,” I exclaim. “The one where we…”
I'm just now realizing that first party had nothing to do with anything. Who invited her to that??
The warehouse is shot through with dazzling spotlights, illuminating the industrial setting for a pulsing rave. Steel beams and brick serve the backdrop for a riotous display of circus performers, acrobats, and even fire-breathers, all dressed in glittering neon, making flashes of color in the dark. There are hundreds of people dancing to the pounding music, dressed to the nines, their masks shot through with UV stripes that seem to bob and float on the dance floor.
And it's a sex party? I want to go to there!!
Now I know it was all a lie.
No, you still don't KNOW. You're still surmising.
The affable smile drops, and something far more dangerous takes its place. Taunting. Smug. “Bad timing, my dear,” he says quietly. “But then, you never did know when to keep your bitch mouth shut.”
Jesus! Well ok then! Way to out yourself, Hugh.
“Saint…” I whisper. My limbs turn heavy, and my legs give way, but I desperately try to fight it. I need to warn Saint… But it’s too late. My body sags. Hugh leans in close, smirking coldly. “Don’t worry, we’ll deal with him.”
Oh no!!
