Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
I went by Landon’s office on my way to work to hear the latest with Kim. The PI she had tailing me was nowhere to be seen. I didn’t know if it was because she’d given up or if she’d hired someone more discreet. I hoped it was the former.
“Looks like she’s still retaining them,” Landon said when I mentioned it. “And she even paid them some of what she owes them.”
“But not all?”
He shook his head, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. The PI hadn’t been around last night to see me with Lily, I was sure of it. If he had been, he’d have rolled down the window to congratulate me. He’d have snapped a picture with a blinding flash, and then laughed about it.
Landon studied me over his computer monitor. “You have something to hide all of a sudden?”
His voice was carefully neutral, but I knew what he was implying. “I’m not fucking the girl, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said flatly.
“It was,” Landon said. “And good. Keep it that way. The last thing you want is for Kim to get a picture of your dick in your daughter’s best friend. She’ll own you.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, digging my thumb and forefinger deep into my painfully dry tear ducts. “Eight more months and I’ll be done with her.”
“Financially, yes,” Landon agreed cautiously.
“I’m going to throw a party. A fucking funeral.”
The corners of Landon’s mouth tugged into a faint smile. “She won’t actually be dead though, pal. You’ll still see her at Halley’s graduation. Her wedding. You two will share grandkids. Remember that before you dance on her grave.”
My anticipation soured. I’d known abstractly that Kim would always be in my life, but I hadn’t thought about the details. I selfishly wished, not for the first time, that she had been a shitty mother instead of just a subpar one. One who would have taken a lump sum and swanned off to Bora Bora, never to think of her daughter again. The trouble was, Kim was just good enough a mother that Halley loved her, and so I was chained to her for the rest of my life. “You’ve got to give me something to bury her with at least,” I said to Landon. “Who is she fucking, and who is she screwing?”
Landon ran through what his PI had gotten on her. It was nothing that surprised me. She was in a relationship with an investment banker, and she was suing a resort wear company that had promised her a bonus every time she posted a picture in their clothing that got over a thousand likes.
“What is she, a fucking influencer now?” I asked in disbelief. “Isn’t she too old?”
“Thirty-nine is the new nineteen,” Landon said, startling a laugh out of me.
“That’s the company’s tagline for her campaign,” he said dryly, turning his monitor so I could see the promo. I glanced, disinterested. Kim looked beautiful as always, if airbrushed within an inch of her life. I was grateful Halley had taken after my side of the family though. It made it easier to forget her mother existed. At least, when I wasn’t having to pay a PI to keep her money grubbing hands at bay.
“If she’s getting brand endorsements and investment bankers, what does she want with me?” I asked, glancing at the name of the resort wear company. They were a mid-level company on the rise. I imagined they paid their influencers decently.
“You know Kim. She has expensive taste. And her investment banker isn’t going to buy the cow. Not when he’s getting milk from several other younger cows about town.”
I rolled my eyes upward. “Please tell me she hasn’t introduced this asshole to Halley as her future stepfather.”
Landon turned the monitor again, and I saw a picture of Kim, Halley, and a slick-looking guy in a Saville Row suit walking out of a restaurant. He looked young and smooth and cocky as all hell. I hated him on sight.
My lip curled. “How old is he?”
Landon’s dark eyebrows rose incrementally. “Older than Lily and richer than you.”
“Fuck you.” Frustrated, I stood up and walked to the window. “I don’t give a shit who Kim is fucking or how much money he has. It’ll never be enough for her. I need something to hold over her.”
“I’m trying.”
“Not something you create,” I warned.
In the window, I saw his blurred, watery reflection shake its head. “No. I know the rules.”
I cracked my knuckles, wishing Landon had a punching bag in his office. “You think there is something?”
There was a long pause. I didn’t turn around to see if he’d heard me. When it came to sensitive information, Landon always chose his words carefully, placing each one in front of the other like a tightrope walker on a highwire. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Used to be that Kim was always good for a few dark secrets. Nothing is coming out of the shadows now though. If there’s nothing there, are you sure…”