Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 227(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
A strange mixture of shock and affection crosses her face. “I’m not arguing with that.”
“Forever,” I tell her.
She nods. “Forever, Miles. I mean it.”
“Good. Then, whatever happens, we’ll have each other.”
She stands again, pulling her hand away. “Even if Mom and Noah hate us for it? Are you prepared to do that? Choose me over your little brother?”
“It’s not a choice.” I stand, too, and walk right up to her. “I didn’t choose to feel this way. I didn’t choose to kiss you at the wedding. This is destiny, Layla.”
“Do you really believe in that?”
“I didn’t before I met you, but now everything’s changed. You’ve changed everything.”
She places her hand on my chest. “Your heart is beating like crazy.”
“It’s beating for you.”
I pull her into my embrace again. We kiss like addicts because it’s what we are—addicted to each other. When I start to get really savage, and I can’t help myself, she pushes against me, leaning back and shaking her head. There’s fear in her eyes. It makes me want to find the source, beat them to a pulp, and scare the hell out of them like those jerks at the restaurant, but I can’t. The fear comes from the pain of keeping this a secret.
“We have to be good until we tell them,” she murmurs.
“So, we’re back to that game?” I tease.
She smiles, but it falters a moment later. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but what if we’re able to do it? It’s everything we want, and then they say no?”
“There’s no what if,” I growl, tucking strands of wild hair behind her ear. “You belong to me. Your perfect body is going to open for me.”
She whimpers softly, the tone seeming suggestive, causing my body to swell with hunger, the fierce desire to take her right now, to ignore her doubts, ignore mine, and hammer her body until she’s overflowing with my seed.
“Okay,” she says, “but still…”
Then she leans in for a kiss. I feel her lips shaping into a smile as we join them together, fusing in an explosion of desire. Finally, she pushes against my chest and leans away.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“I’ve told you a million times about that word. This is something you never have to apologize for.”
“But I’m getting you all excited, and I can’t. Not until…”
“I get it. When Layla?”
She stands, wrapping her arms around herself, shivering softly. “Soon. Later, when they get home, or maybe tomorrow.”
“The longer we delay—”
“The more chance Graham tells her. I get that.”
I’m about to reply when her cellphone rings. The conversation is short. There’s a bunch of yeses, and then she hangs up.
“Graham needs me to cover a shift. I’ll be heading to work soon.”
“I’m driving that way, too. I can give you a ride.”
She nods but then shakes her head. It’s as if the inner battle is streaking across her beautiful exterior, touching every inch of her. “I think we should go separately. Not to stroke your ego, but it’s freaking hard to resist you.”
I smirk, stand, and walk right up to her. “Right back at you, my wife-to-be.”
She glows, and we hold intense eye contact, but she breaks it eventually and turns away.
Be good.
I’m not sure I can.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Layla
Nerves try to drag me down as I walk into the restaurant, rising like invisible snakes and coiling around me, tugging, insistent, cruel, and ugly. I’m here at work, knowing that Graham’s friends could’ve told him the truth.
It doesn’t help that I’m five minutes late. There was a car crash, and it took a while to steer around, but Graham won’t care. He’ll launch into one of his tirades for all the kitchen to hear as I repeatedly apologize, now with the added element of imagining him with my dad.
“Layla,” he says when I push open the door to the staffroom.
He’s leaning against the wall in his chef’s whites but without his hat. I expect his expression to form into its regular cruel configuration, but there’s surprising softness as he smiles tightly, gesturing at the small seating area.
“Do you have time for a quick talk?”
This is unusual, too. He’s asking me, not ordering.
“Um, sure,” I mutter, wondering if this is it. He’s going to fire me or worse.
We sit opposite each other. Graham picks at the table with his thumb, then sighs.
“I haven’t been very kind to you,” he says. “In fact, it’s fair to say I’ve been a real monster. I’ve let certain past events dictate how I behave, but it’s no excuse. For what it’s worth, Layla, you’re excellent at your job. You’re going to run a fantastic kitchen one day. You’ve got the raw talent, the commitment, and the it factor.”
“Wow, thanks,” I say. “That means a lot.”
Whatever else Graham is, he’s a well-respected and immensely talented chef.
“A friend called me late last night,” Graham says.