Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
I’d stopped trying to figure him out. It was impossible. He was the most difficult human I had ever met. If he wanted to ignore me, then so be it. I’d just won the Belmont Derby Invitational, and I wasn’t letting him ruin it for me.
“What do you want to eat?” he asked me, breaking the silence I’d started getting accustomed to with him.
I turned my head to look at him. Seeing him in the black-pearl snap, belt, and jeans today had taken my breath for a moment. He cleaned up too well. But then he’d not spoken to me the rest of the day, and I’d gotten over it.
“Doesn’t matter,” I replied, then looked back out the window again.
“Yeah, it does. You just won a race and made your biggest purse cut of seventy-five thousand dollars, and you haven’t had what you wanted to eat in weeks.”
I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I’d made so much money. He was right. This was the biggest purse I’d ever won. I felt guilty for taking ten percent because I was sure just about any jockey could have ridden Bloodline and won. He was a born winner.
“Honestly, I really do not care what I eat,” I told him.
“Nashville buffalo chicken pizza with extra sauce or baked lobster mac and cheese?”
I swung my head back around to look at him. How did he know my two favorite meals? He’d paid for our pizza and my salad, but that was very specific. The lobster mac and cheese was also from a local restaurant back home, and he’d never paid for my meal there. Was what I ate in my background check? Besides, we weren’t in Madison. I couldn’t order either of those items.
“I doubt they will be easy to find here,” I said instead of asking him how he knew my two cheat meals. Which was hard not to do because I wanted to know.
The corner of his lips twitched. “I can make either happen. Or both. You tell me, or I’ll have both delivered to the suite.”
I shook my head in confusion. “How?”
“Because I can,” he replied.
Okay, fine, don’t tell me.
I chewed my bottom lip. I wanted both, and I was curious as to if he could actually find both of them in the city. He sure looked smug about it.
“Both.” It sounded like a challenge because it was.
He seemed to be amused by it. I watched him drop his gaze to his phone and text something, then look back up at me.
“Anything else?” he asked.
He was so sure of himself.
“Lemon crinkle cookies,” I added.
He lifted one eyebrow as he held my gaze. “Those have already been delivered to the suite. You’ll have to get more creative, little doll.”
There was that name again. My stomach got all funny, and I tried not to be affected by it. That name was very likely an insult. Having him call me little and doll made me sound childlike. Still, the way his voice got deeper and raspier when he said it got to me.
“You want lemon drops or dirty martinis for your cocktails?”
I raised both my eyebrows. He knew my drink choices too. Should I be concerned? Did these things make it into a background check?
“Plural,” I replied. “You’re assuming I will want more than one.”
“You just won a race. I thought you’d like to celebrate.”
I pressed my lips together. Maybe drinking would ease the tension I felt when I was around him. Especially since Thursday. “Both.”
He smirked then and went back to texting on his phone.
“How do you know my favorite foods and cocktails?” I blurted out, unable to help myself.
“I told you, I’m thorough.”
Thorough in what? Stalking?
I sighed and turned to look back out the window. This man was always going to be hard to understand. Or I wanted it to all mean more when, in reality, this was what they did for their jockeys. I’d never ridden for billionaires. They might be used to jockeys who expected it. I was not a diva.
I kept silent the rest of the way back to the hotel. Replaying every moment today was enough to entertain me and not focus on the awkwardness between Thatcher and me. Who was I kidding? He was never awkward. That was all me.
When the driver opened the limo door once we reached the hotel, I climbed out, not looking back at Thatcher. His presence behind me, however, was impossible to ignore. The desire to turn around and look at him, talk to him, listen to his voice made it difficult to keep walking toward the elevators.
The older man, who wore a suit and stood at the doors to the elevators, smiled at me as I approached. I didn’t understand why they had someone to press the button for you or hold open the doors for you at the elevator. It seemed like a pointless job, but he had a kind smile and seemed to like what he did.