Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 25234 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25234 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
But he still has so much more explaining to do.
I take the phone and dial my number and hand it back to him.
“My aunt said you’d seen her naked. Is that true?”
Cade groans. I already know the answer before he replies. “Yep.” He nods. My stomach twists as I start imagining all the possible scenarios that could have led to that happening.
“But it’s not what you think.”
“Well what is it, then?”
“She asked me to come into the house to fix a pipe that I’m ninety-nine percent sure she rigged to be leaky, and when I turned around, she had let her robe fall off.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” I gasp.
“Nope.” He shakes his head. “Sky, your aunt has been trying to hit on me for a while now. That’s why I’ve moved all my work to the outskirts of her property and had the other guys working close to the house–so she wouldn’t have a chance to get me alone again.”
That glimmer of hope is starting to grow inside me.
I can totally see Beatrice behaving this way, especially after our encounter when she told me to stay away from Cade and slammed the door in my face.
“You said she called you over to her house?” I ask.
Cade nods. “She is moving to California. She bought a house, and she offered me triple my salary to move with her and be her live-in lawn-care worker basically.”
“What? And what did you say to her?”
“I told her I couldn’t do that but I’d gladly stay here and maintain this house while she’s gone.”
Could this be true?
Could what Cade is saying be what actually happened?
I look up at him and feel the flow of my tears slow, the pace of my heart lessens.
“So…you didn’t try to seduce my aunt?” I ask, my lips trembling as the words pass through them.
Cade laughs tenderly and threads his callused fingers through my hair. My body comes alive as he caresses my scalp.
“Never. I love you, Sky. You are my angel. There is no other woman in this entire Earth I would rather be with.” And here come the tears again. “In fact, it wasn’t just to clear up all this crap your aunt has been saying that I came here tonight. There was another reason…”
Cade takes my hand in his and drops to one knee.
My heart nearly leaps from my chest.
“Wh–what are you doing?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a tiny velvet blue box. I gasp and cover my mouth with my other hand.
Is this seriously happening right now? I’m in my pajamas in the middle of a trailer park!
He pops open the box and to reveal the ring: white-gold with a perfectly sized diamond, cut with just the right shape as though I was right there picking it out with him when he bought it.
I absolutely love it.
“Skylar, will you marry me?”
The air is electric. I can’t speak. A moment passes as I stare down at the gorgeous man in front of me, kneeling with my hand in his and a ring held up to me, his face filled with a love that I fully believe.
“You know that if I marry you, my aunt won’t leave me a dime, right?” I ask.
Cade grins. “You know that I don’t care, right?”
And then it hits me. A revelation in my chest that should have never taken me this long to fully connect to.
“I know,” I say, so happy I can speak the words.
“So is that a yes?” he asks.
I’m about to speak, but before I can, I hear the sound of screeching tires and spin to see blaring headlights speeding toward me. Cade quickly stands and pulls me out of the way as a Mercedes G-Wagon comes rocketing past us and skids to a halt just a few feet from where we were standing.
“Is that–?”
The door opens, and my Aunt Beatrice leaps out, her hair an absolute frizzy mess, her clothes a wreck like I’ve never seen her before. She marches toward us both, pointing a finger at me like the last time she threatened me.
“Oh, I knew it!” she screeches, her voice like a squawking vulture. “You didn’t turn me down because you wanted to stay here. You turned me down because of her!”
“Beatrice, maybe you should calm down–” Cade starts to say, but Beatrice turns her eyes on me.
“And you! You little bitch. I told you to stay away from him!”
She rushes me like she’s going to grab me and choke me, but Cade steps in the way and grabs both of her wrists and pins them behind her back.
“Easy there. Easy,” he says. “Let’s just calm down.”
“What the hell is going on out here!?” I turn and see my dad stepping out of the trailer and wish I could just shrink myself into a Lego-sized version of myself and hide until this is all over.