Page 211 of The Billionaire's Secret
His dark black coat glints in the sunlight. He tosses his head, snorts.
Saint, lowers the zipper of his sweatshirt, then pulls out the packet and empties out a couple of sugar lumps.
"Is that for the horse?"
He smiles, walks toward the fence, "Devil here, is a pure-bred Arabian. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sneak him a treat, could I?"
He holds out his palm and the horse moseys over and licks up the cubes. Devil snorts again. Saint reaches up to run his fingers over his long nose. The horse, whines, stamps his feet. The horse lowers his head and Saint scratches him behind his ears until a rumbling sound emerges from him.
What the—?I blink.
"He sometimes behaves more like a dog than a horse," a voice explains.
I whip around to see a woman walking toward us. She's the one Saint met the other day. Tiny, exquisitely curved, her legs are enclosed in boots and slim jeans. Her plaid shirt is tucked into her hourglass waist. Her hair flows around her shoulders. Behind her, the door to the house stands open. Guess I'd missed that, entranced by the ease with which Saint had petted the horse.
She walks up and holds out her hand, "I'm Tink."
"Tink?" I frown.
She sighs, "Yeah, I was named Tinkerbell. I do prefer Tink, though."
"Don't blame you," I mutter. "I'm Victoria." I take her hand.
"Your name suits you." She looks me up and down, "You do bear a resemblance to Posh—"
"Don’t say it, please. I don't know her, have never met her. She is no relation to me..."
"—Spice," she completes her statement. "Sorry, bet you've heard that a million times and hate it as much as I do my name."
"Hate to say it, but yours suits you, too," I bite my lips.
"Well, guess we are kindred, huh?" She drops my hand, turns to Saint.
"You made it," she jerks her chin.
"It sounded urgent."
"Sorry, but I think you need to see this one," she replies.
Saint pulls away from the horse, dusts his palms on his jeans, then reaches for mine, "Shall we?"
Tink leads the way inside, past a small living room, to another room that's furnished like an office. A bank of computer screens fills most of one wall. There are more screens sitting on the desk, each showing different images, two of them have maps with dots blinking on them. Whoa, someone loves their technology.
She slips into the chair, pulls up surveillance footage.
The screen shows a group of girls in a room which looks like a dormitory. Some of them are lying down, some sitting. One of them paces back and forth. She pauses, glances round the room, looks straight at the camera. Her desperate eyes seem to fill the screen, as she begins to weep.
The other women in the room sit up. One of them gets out of her bed to approach her... One of the others gestures to her. She hesitates, then falls back.
Tink shuts it off. "Sorry," she apologies, "it's hard to watch."
Saint wraps his arm around me and pulls me into his side. I rub my cheek against his sleeve.
He kisses the top of my head, "Shouldn't have allowed you to see that... But I wanted you to meet Tink and find out about the work we do together."
I look up at him, "So, you and she..."
"She runs an initiative that helps rescue those kidnapped or those who go missing." His lips stiffen. "No one should go through what I went through; nor the kind of mental trauma..." he peruses my features, "inflicted on Nina, and then on you."
