Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“When, if ever, were you planning to tell me that your real name is Rex Hunter Rothermere?” I asked.
I felt his body still.
Then he turned to face me. “How did you find out?”
“Steven’s best man remembered.”
“I bet that put the cat among the pigeons in Nicole’s world,” he commented cynically.
“Yes, it did, and it made Tiffany go into full Godzilla mode too. She actually screeched with fury and frustration.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t try to claw your eyes out.”
“Too many people around, plus I’m taller and stronger than her.” I paused. “When Olivia said the wedding didn’t take place you didn’t seem surprised.”
“No, I wasn’t. Tiffany told me she was having second thoughts.”
“Really, when?”
“We bumped into each other while I was walking around the lake.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you already had too much on your plate to contend with.”
I frowned. “She told me to get your cock out of my mouth. Any idea why?”
His lips quirked. “I told her you gave the best blow job I’d ever had.”
“What? Why were you talking about that with her?”
He smiled crookedly. “It’s true… and I wanted to piss her off.”
“Well, you certainly succeeded there.” For a few seconds neither of us spoke. “Why did you lie about who you are, Rex?”
“I don’t know. You wanted to pretend to be in a relationship and I wanted to pretend I was not a Rothermere. Just for one weekend I wanted to pretend to be an ordinary man. I couldn’t resist the idea of going to a small town where no one knew me with a maddeningly sexy blonde.”
“So, it was just a sex thing, huh? A dirty weekend with a dumb blonde that offered you a thousand bucks to pretend to be her boyfriend.”
“No, I always knew you were not a dumb blonde. I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you. You were so utterly different from the people I move with.”
“Ah, you were slumming it?”
“Stop it, Willow. I wasn’t slumming it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It might have started as a dirty weekend, but it’s not that now. You are like a drug. My body craves you day and night. I can’t seem to get enough of you. These last three days have been hell.”
“So why didn’t you call me?”
His face closed over and became secretive again. “Because I have something important to sort out.”
“The same thing that made you leave Bison Ridge?”
“Yes,” he admitted slowly.
“It’s not work, is it?”
“No, Willow. It’s not.”
“Will you ever be able to tell me about it?”
“I’m working on it.”
“So, what happens to… us in the meantime?”
“I want us to see each other, but not officially. Not yet. Just give me a bit of time, okay?”
What else was I going to say, but, ‘Okay’.
33
REX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y
I stared at the DNA results that my lawyer had delivered to my office. The child was definitely mine. My hands shook slightly. I was the father of a three-year-old boy. A boy I’d never met.
Never once in my life had I had sex without protection. And certainly not with Jessica. Unlike Willow, she was just pure fling material and never would have been anything more. I picked her up at a beach resort. She was working the bar. I remember her still. She had sad eyes and a firm body.
I thought about Willow.
I had to forget her for a moment and deal with the problem at hand. Jessica was sitting in a hotel waiting for the DNA results before we could talk. We hadn’t met or spoken since I returned to New York. There had been nothing to talk about until the DNA results arrived.
Now, we had plenty to talk about, including why she hadn’t seen fit to let me know I had a child all this time.
A knot of anger formed in my gut. That boy was my child. She should have told me. With every second, I grew angrier. I felt cheated. I grabbed my phone and called her.
“Hello,” she said at the first ring, as if she had been staring at the screen, waiting for it to ring. “Rex.”
“Can we meet?” I asked briskly.
“Yes. We can meet in the bar downstairs.”
“Fine.”
“I have someone minding Kayden, but it’s nice to be nearby so you can see him,” she said.
Kayden. That was his name. I took a deep breath. I really was a father. “Half an hour?”
“Okay,” she said.
Finn drove me and stopped the car outside the bar. I expected to get there before Jessica as I was terrible at keeping time, but I found her already there. She waved at me from a table by a window.
“Rex.” She stood up and made as if to hug me.
I stopped her with a look. I might have agreed to meet, but that did not mean I wanted anything to do with her. The four years since the end of our fling had not been kind to her. She had lost a lot of weight. Her face looked thin and pinched and her eyes seemed sadder than ever.