Read Captivated (Talented Saga #3.5) for Free Online Page B

shot
of adrenaline and even the short make-out session left me fatigued.
He’d said I had two hours to rest while he prepared my surprise, so
I curled up in my own bed and slept. Thanks to the increased dosage
of my medication, I had no dreams.
    A short while later I awoke to
someone gently shaking my shoulder. When I opened my eyes,
Gretchen’s smiling face and cornflower blue eyes stared back at
me.
    “How are you feeling?” she asked.
It was the same question Gretchen always asked me the instant I
woke up, before my brain was fully functioning. And I gave her the
same answer now that I did the previous fifty-two times – I kept a
mental tally.
    “Better.”
    “You might want to throw on a
sweater before you go out,” she told me. “There is a slight breeze
tonight.”
    Always such a mother, I thought
with a twinge of longing for my own parents. Even with a breeze in
the air, the night was likely too warm to necessitate a sweater;
summers in Maryland were disgustingly humid.
    Gretchen stood and offered me help
out of bed. Despite feeling like a child, I accepted her hand and
swung my legs over the side of the mattress. I glanced down at my
dress, now wrinkled from having been slept in. Then I decided that
I should probably change before going out. Wait, where was I
going?
    “Gretchen?” I asked. “Where am I
going that I need a sweater?”
    Gretchen’s smiled stretched wider,
giddy anticipation emanating off of her in waves. “It’s a surprise,
sweetheart.”
    I added the word “surprise” to the
mental list of words that I hoped never to hear again, right below
“protocol” and “overstimulation.”
    I narrowed my gaze suspiciously.
“Do you know what Erik has planned?”
    “You should freshen up, dear. You
need to leave in a couple of minutes.” Gretchen’s eyes sparkled
with excitement. I tried to read her mind, but found the barriers
were up and firmly in place. I considered knocking them down, but
lacked the energy. There was the fact that Erik had obviously put a
lot of effort into whatever he’d planned and reading Gretchen’s
mind would ruin the surprise.
    I padded to my bathroom to
“freshen up”, dreading the mirror over the sink since Gretchen had
felt the need to comment on my appearance. My reflection was as bad
as I’d feared. Instead of the few stubborn pieces of hair that had
refused to stay straight, my head was covered in curls once again.
My eyes were bloodshot from the crying stint when Erik first
arrived, and no makeup remained, save several smudges of mascara
under my bottom lashes.
    With a groan, I quickly washed my
face, brushed my teeth, and piled the unruly mess of hair into a
bun. When I emerged from the bathroom, I found a strapless,
lavender sundress lying on my bed with a white cardigan displayed
next to it. The dress was one I recognized from my closet, but not
one I’d ever worn. I quickly traded the wrinkled sundress I
currently wore for the freshly pressed one Gretchen had selected,
and wrapped the cardigan around my shoulders for good measure. The
sweater was unnecessary, but I hated for Gretchen to think I was
ignoring her warning about the breeze.
    My sitting room was empty, so I
wound my way through the McDonough’s house until I finally found
Gretchen waiting in the foyer. She still wore a bright smile, and
now had car keys and a long strip of black cloth in one hand. The
cloth gave me pause.
    “What is that ?” I asked, pointing at what
appeared to be a blindfold.
    Gretchen’s grin turned maniacal,
matching the one her son often wore when he was up to no good.
“It’s for you, dear. Come here so I can put it on.”
    I hesitated. Surprises were bad
enough; blindfolds were where I drew the line. Nothing good ever
came of being blindfolded.
    “Natalia,” Gretchen began in an inpatient tone,
“relax, sweetheart.”
    After several more moments of deliberation, I
finally walked over to her and allowed her to tie the blindfold
around my eyes.
    “You do