Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 116760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
“Bebe,” he whispered.
Lord, he was hurting for her.
“I don’t need your pity,” she said brightly. “I’m fine. Better than fine. Look at me. Got my health. Got this house. Got my friends.”
Friends?
What friends? The homeless guy and that skater asshole? Surely, she must mean someone else, but he hadn’t seen or heard about them in the last week.
“It’s not pity I feel, Bebe,” he told her. “It’s anger. Close to rage.”
She visibly flinched. Fuck. He either needed to get her down from there or get himself up there.
“I need you to come down.”
“I like to watch the sunrise from up here. It calms me.”
Corbin sighed. “Fine, then.” He glanced around, wondering. “How did you get up there?”
“Easy, I just stood on the bannister, grabbed the edge of the roof, and pulled myself up.”
Fuck.
She did not.
“You did not.”
“Uh, yes, I did.”
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Moving to the bannister, he gave it a firm shake.
It wobbled.
Holy crap.
This girl was gonna kill him. She really was.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Just trying to remind myself of the rules.”
“What rules?” she asked.
Oh, rules like you cannot spank your client just because she keeps putting her safety at risk.
That sort of rule.
“Nothing you’d be interested in,” he told her.
He lifted himself onto the bannister, then carefully stood while holding onto a supporting roof beam.
Then he pulled himself onto the roof and sat down beside her. He noticed that she had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
“Wow. You made that look easy.”
“Be easier not to do it at all,” he grumbled.
Christ, he was starting to sound like Hayes.
“But not nearly so much fun.”
Fun?
“We have different definitions of fun.”
“I guess we do. Glad to know the bannister was able to hold your weight. I was thinking of replacing it, but I guess it will last a while longer.”
“You’re replacing it,” he growled. He didn’t seem to have the patience to temper his response.
A morning wake-up like this would do that to a man.
There were so many ways she could have hurt herself. She could be lying on the ground right now . . . broken . . . bleeding.
Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
“You okay? You seem tense. And your breathing is funny.”
“Do I? Is it?” It could be because she was raising his blood pressure through the roof.
“Must be due to your anger issues.”
“Anger issues?” What anger issues?
“You just said before that you were really angry and I’m not sure why. What do you have to be angry about?”
“How about the way your parents treated you as a child? Don’t you think that’s reason enough for me to be mad?”
More than mad.
Upset. Heartbroken. Murderous.
And then her mother went and aired her break-up with her idiot boyfriend on TV for everyone to see.
They never protected her.
They exploited her.
She turned to look at him, but he kept his gaze ahead, feeling the anger rising again. He didn’t want to frighten her with his fury.
“You’re angry on my behalf?” There was a hint of wonder in her voice.
As though she couldn’t imagine anyone feeling that way. For her.
Fuck. That was making him feel angry all over again.
“Yeah. On your behalf. No child should ever feel like their parents are strangers to them. No child or adult should ever feel unworthy of love.”
She sucked in a breath. “No, you’re right. They shouldn’t.”
“You have every right to be angry at them,” he told her. “But try not to let it consume you. Anger can become toxic. It can eat you alive. And turn you into someone you don’t want to be.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“You’re a smart guy. Anyone ever tell you that?”
He let out a small huff of laughter.
“I’m trying not to hate them. I’ve even considered forgiving them. Or forgiving my father. It’s just . . . it’s hard to trust them.”
“No one says you have to trust them. In fact, I wouldn’t if I were you.”
She let out a sigh just as the sun started to rise on the horizon.
“This is why you come up here,” he murmured.
“It’s so nice and quiet. The city is starting to wake up and the sun is rising. And she’s beautiful. Reliable. Always there.”
Corbin thought he was starting to understand her a bit better. They sat for a while and watched the sun rise.
“Are you cold? Do you need to share my blanket?” she asked.
“Yeah, that would be good.”
He wasn’t actually cold. But he couldn’t resist the opportunity to be closer to her. She helped him wrap the blanket around his shoulders, and as soon as they were close, he breathed in her scent.
Lord.
Was this some kind of trial? A test?
If it was, then he was failing miserably.
“My dad . . . he’s trying to make up for it now. To get to know me . . . it’s just that it feels like is . . .”