Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
I thought he had left.
“Yeah?”
I pray for him to give me the chance to show him he isn’t the monster he thinks he is, but I am left disappointed when he demands, “Come lock your door. I can’t deadbolt it from the outside.”
The quick plummet of my heart into my stomach is heard in my reply, “Just leave it.”
“Jess…” The pain in his voice is worse than a thousand papercuts. “Please don’t lower yourself to my standards. Do what needs to be done to protect yourself, and don’t take stupid shortcuts that could result in you getting hurt.”
With a similar warning from my father ringing in my ears the day I told him I had accepted Warren’s request to be his wife, I slip out of my bed then slowly pad down the hallway.
My door is closed, but I know Caleb is standing outside it, waiting for me to fix the lock into place. I can see his shadow under the door, not to mention feel his protectiveness beaming through the door Lou replaced after Warren busted it open.
Furthermore, a second after the bolt clicks into place, he whispers, “Goodnight, Jess.”
I want to be a stubborn mule, but how can I when even after an argument, my safety is still in the forefront of his mind? So instead, I reply, “Goodnight, Caleb.”
CHAPTER 32
CALEB
The orange juice bottle hangs halfway into the refrigerator when the door of our apartment rockets open, and Jess charges in like she’s issuing a search warrant.
“Where is he?” she asks Octavia, her voice the deepest and angriest I’ve heard it.
Like a nark about to serve a life sentence, Octavia rats me out before I have the chance to shove a saucepan down my pants to protect my nuts from Jess’s clear annoyance.
“Jessie…” I growl out slowly, saying anything to lessen the frustrated grooves lining her forehead.
“Don’t you dare Jessie me,” she snaps out while approaching me like I have her bricks of cocaine shoved down the front of my sweatpants. “Two and a half years, Caleb. Two and a half long fucking years.”
Since I’ve done a lot of not very nice things to her in that period of time, I mutter, “Since…”
She fills in the gaps as hoping. However, she doesn’t use words. She uses the receipt for the purchases I’ve had emailed to me for almost three years now. For the food-kit hampers that still arrive like clockwork every Saturday.
I had an issue with my credit card last month.
Okay, let’s be real. I haven’t found a job since leaving Franks, so my credit is fucking shot, but I’d shovel shit for a penny an hour before I’d cancel Jess’s subscription, so I resorted to paying via a handful of cash jobs I’d be given.
The company assured me the change in payment plan wouldn’t affect the delivery of my order.
Lying pricks.
Jess’s temple throbs when she murmurs, “You let me think the deliveries were from my father.”
I slice my hand through the air, cutting her off. “When did I say that?”
My lips twitch when she cocks her hip before she fans her tiny hands across the generous swell. “The night you almost ruined the product when you dumped it onto the ground so we could fuc—”
I clamp my hand over her mouth before dragging her into the kitchen. Since our kitchen is tiny, and my cousin is nosey, I crowd her against the refrigerator door before leaning in close. “I never said it was your father.”
I can’t understand a word she speaks under my hand, so I separate my fingers a smidge so she can talk. “You said my father cared about me, and that I should accept his generosity solely because of that.”
“No.” Ignoring the way my deep voice rumbling through our cojoined bodies doubles the throb of the vein in her neck, I correct, “I said someone cares about you enough they want to make sure you’re eating right, and there could be far worse things they could do to you than care. Someone, Jessie. I never said your dad.”
I really wish she’d stop breathing so heavily. Every inhale squashes her breasts into my chest more, and I’m struggling big time, ignoring that fact.
“You implied it was my father.”
“I didn’t. I just skirted around who it could be.”
As her pretty eyes bounce between mine, she murmurs, “Why? Why hide that it was you?”
I hate how well she can read me.
“Because you didn’t want to foil your ruse that you’re not good enough for me.” When she spots the truth in my eyes, she bucks against me, demanding to be let free.
When I do as asked because I will never force anyone to do anything against their will, Jess flattens the crinkles my closeness caused to her skirt, breathes out her frustration, then marches back for the door while muttering, “Come get your food, Caleb.”