Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Because soon as it goes online,” she’d said to him once, “there’s a high chance a creep will find it and add a fetishizing comment, and yeah, no thanks.” She’d shaken her head. “I see it with Posey’s profile—she doesn’t care, but I get so angry for her. I’d probably go nuclear if anyone pulled the same shit with me.”
“What does Posey say?”
“She sees it as being herself in all her glory and fuck the creeps, which I agree with—but she also accepts my viewpoint. We’re different people with different thoughts on the whole thing. No one has a right to what we don’t choose to reveal.”
Danny would punch out a photographer himself before he let anyone steal that choice from her. “Thanks, man,” he said to the cab driver when they pulled up to a stop outside the apartment building. “I know it’s slow going on the roads today.”
“No problem.” The big Tongan man smiled, his teeth white against the black of the neat beard that framed his mouth. “You mind autographing this notepad? My boy plays rugby. He’ll go nuts—and it’s his birthday in a week, so I figure I can give it to him then.”
“Sure, no problem.” Danny paid the fare, took the notepad. “If you give me your address, I’ll send you a bunch of team stuff for him too.”
This time the driver’s smile eclipsed the sunshine that lit up the snow.
Danny carried that blast of happiness with him as he walked into the building through a coded door for which Catie had given him the number. She’d also given him a keycard to get into the penthouse elevator and the access code for the apartment itself.
Jacqueline did not piss around when it came to security.
When he entered the apartment, it was to find Catie’s bedroom door open, silence a lingering beat in the air. “Catie!”
Nothing.
Taking out his phone, he texted her: Are you alive?
Ha ha. I needed hair goop for tonight, and I ran out of mascara. What, you miss me?
Danny didn’t like this apartment without Catie here. It was too sharp and modern and clinical. But he wasn’t about to admit that to her. Bring back some eggs. I want to make a cake. He’d tried to bring up his interest in baking with a couple of dates over the past year, and they’d both taken it as a joke. Not that they’d been mean women—Danny didn’t go for mean—but they just had this image of him in their mind, and the whole cooking and baking thing didn’t fit.
He couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t like he put it out there. Then again, wasn’t dating meant to be about getting to know people?
Oooh, can you do chocolate?
I’ll see. He actually wanted to try an experimental recipe but wasn’t sure if they had all the ingredients. After checking, he texted her back. Don’t worry about the eggs. I need to go out to grab a few other ingredients anyway.
I’ll meet you at the supermarket. You’re going to the one around the corner from the apartment? I’m almost there.
Yeah.
He’d just grabbed a shopping cart outside the store when she wandered over from the parking lot. “Whose car is that?” he asked, having seen her drive into the spot on the other side of the cart bay.
“Jacqueline’s.”
Danny was aware they were attracting attention as they wandered the aisles, but he ignored it. It wasn’t the people taking sneaky photos in a supermarket who were the problem. “Did you find your hair goop?”
“Yup.” She put a huge bar of chocolate in the cart. “For the chocolate cake.”
“Subtle, princess.” But he didn’t put it back. “Get me that bar next to the one you grabbed.” He pointed at the strawberry flavored chocolate.
“Ew.” But she dropped it in the cart. “What are you going to do with that?”
“Something.”
She poked him in the side, then pretended to have a broken finger. “Seriously, you’re going overboard on the ab workouts.”
Danny wanted to preen, fed his idiotic happiness into a joke. “What workouts? I’m a natural beauty.”
As she laughed, he threw a packet of oats and one of mixed dried fruit into the cart. The secret ingredient when it came to making a healthy snack was to “trick” people into thinking it was bad for them—sometimes all that took was a hint of chocolate. Because Danny didn’t just want to cook for sports people or others on nutritionist-informed diets. He wanted to cook for everyone.
“If I tell you something, will you keep it a secret?” he found himself saying.
12
TOP SECRET INFORMATION
Catie shot him a considering look. “Like a real secret?”
He nodded.
Her expression shifted, a solemn promise in her gaze. “Yes.”
He believed her. He and Catie, they didn’t backstab. That wasn’t their kind of fighting. They got in each other’s faces, and the best wins were always with humor. “Okay, but promise not to laugh too.”