Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76203 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 381(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
“They’re yours. Trust me, they’re being paid for,” Simon said, then turned and walked out.
I listened to the clerk for a moment before I was suddenly just… allowed to walk out of the courthouse.
It sounded really dumb, considering I was only in custody for a few days, but I felt weird just being allowed to move around of my own free will again.
My feet felt leaded as I walked down the hall toward the front doors, the October sky dreary and overcast.
I usually loved that.
The crisp air, the grumpy weather, the way it just begged you to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and settle in.
Now, though, all I could think was how my mood seemed to match. Gloomy. Moody. Stuck between.
I moved out the doors.
And stood on the steps.
I would like to claim the shiver that moved through me was from the chill in the air. But I knew it was something else, something more internal than that.
What did I do now?
Where did I go?
What was going on?
“Everleigh!” a voice called, making me turn to find the source of it.
And there he was.
Tall, broad, with his dark, flawless skin, his warm brown eyes, his small, unsure smile.
He looked different, though, wearing a suit that seemed to be built for him.
I managed to have a thought about how much fabric it must have taken to make it before it all finally seemed to click together in my mind.
It was Detroit.
Detroit who’d called Simon Evertz to defend me. Who was paying his bill. Who had likely paid for my bail.
I didn’t stop to think.
I just… flew at him.
The second I collided with his solid frame, the first sob escaped me. Loud. Unrestrained.
I couldn’t have quieted myself down right then if I tried.
“Hey,” he murmured, voice soft, as his arms went around me, squeezing me tight, and some part of me wanted to tell him to hold me tighter, because I felt like I was falling apart.
Words failed me, so I just wrapped my arms more tightly around him, then felt him do the same, just shy of too tight as the last few days of confusion and fear and bone-deep humiliation burst out of me, leaving me sobbing into his wide chest as his hands moved up and down my back, trying to soothe me.
There was no stopping this, though. Once the dam was opened, the water seemed to just keep flowing.
People were probably staring, mumbling to each other, even laughing at me behind my back.
I didn’t see, hear, or care.
I just needed to purge all of this.
“Hey, it’s all going to be okay now,” Detroit said as I was trying to take some deep breaths to bring some sort of order back to my mind and body.
“I… you… I owe…”
“No, you don’t,” he insisted.
“Yes, I do!” I cried, pressing my forehead into his chest.
“Listen, you don’t, okay? If that’s why you’re crying…”
Sniffling hard, I pulled my arms from around him, trying to wipe my face with my hands, not the sleeves of my nice, new, designer shirt that he also seemed to have bought me. Along with my slacks, shoes, bra, and panties.
“It’s part of it,” I admitted when I could finally speak like a normal human being. But I still refused to move away from him.
“Come on. Let’s get in the car, then we can talk, okay?” he asked, his hand sliding back and forth across my lower back.
That little quiver that moved through me?
That was… unexpected.
“Okay?” he asked when I still didn’t move away.
“Okay,” I agreed, finally taking a step back.
I kept my head ducked, though, knowing what a mess I had been even before all the blubbering. I had to be hideous right then.
Clutching my bag with my earrings from my father in my hand, I followed Detroit as he led me down the stairs, to the lot, then opened the SUV door for me to slide in.
I didn’t feel like the tightness in my chest loosening until the door closed.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said instead of launching right into it. “How about coffee on the way back to Shady Valley?” he asked.
Coffee.
God, yes.
That was exactly what I needed.
“I can make it at home,” I said.
“We’re getting coffee,” he said, brushing it off, likely knowing what I was thinking. That it would be another expense I couldn’t pay him back for. “Tell me what you want,” he added.
“A caramel swirl coffee with cream,” I told him.
“Hot?”
I was an iced coffee girlie a lot of the time.
But this was the sort of situation that called for hot.
“Please,” I said as he turned off the road and into a lot with a drive-through, getting me a coffee and a cake pop that I didn’t ask for, but my stomach was begging for.
It wasn’t until I’d taken a few sips and eaten the cake pop when he parked the car and looked over at me.