Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 354(@250wpm)___ 295(@300wpm)
I answer it, growling, “Your brother is a total asshole.”
Maria laughs as I seethe. “Yeah, that’s the impression he gives people,” she says. “Why what did he do this time? And why are you two even hanging out? Did you have to do a group dinner with his friends that own the store or something?”
Where do I even start? The bet? Staying at the same hotel room? The—
My phone is snatched from my hand as I try to wave down a cab.
“Hi, baby sis, I’ll call you back. Right now, I have to calm down my date,” Will says, then he hangs up the phone.
“Date?” I bark at him as I try to reach for my phone, but he dangles it above me. “I am not your date, you fucking idiot.”
“Calm down,” he soothes with that half-cocked smile.
“No woman has ever calmed down in the history of calming down with a man telling her to do so. You are such a fucking idiot,” I scream, and people around us stop and watch. They begin to whisper, but I don’t give a shit.
Today was a mistake.
“Are you done?” he asks patiently, his eyes never leaving mine.
“No. Give me my phone before I break that fucking nose of yours.”
His eyebrows perk up as he whistles. I’ve never been like this with anyone before, but I’m so fucking mad. I just can’t control my irritation around this man.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and hands my phone over. I snatch it out of his hand. “Let me take you home.”
“Go eat a dick and die,” I spit back, turning on my heels and walking the other way.
I’m relieved, if only slightly, when he doesn’t follow.
Sometimes threatening to break a pretty boy’s nose is effective.
CHAPTER 17
Will
“You fucked that one up.” I’m clipped in the back of the head, and when I turn around, Anya is standing there with her arms crossed over her chest.
“What?” I say, shrugging my shoulders.
“You thought you could get her into bed with that stupid game?” Her gaze moves to River, who’s stepping out of the restaurant. “And you!” She points to him. “You shouldn’t have entertained this stupid game in the first place.” She shakes her head before she stomps off to the waiting car.
“Man, you made my wife mad,” River says, although I can tell he’s amused.
“To be fair, I didn’t think both of them would be this angry. It was just a little cheek.”
He shakes his head. “For someone so smart, you’re really dense when it comes to women. Maybe more so because you don’t know how to deal with them outside of fucking them.”
My phone buzzes, and I see it’s my sister. I ignore it. “That might be true, but I’m certain I can win the next bet.”
River looks at me in disbelief. “I don’t think you have a second plane to spare. And besides, I don’t think she’s going to play that game twice.”
I casually shrug. “So I let her choose the guy next time.”
River laughs. “You’re out of your mind if you think she’ll fall for that a second time. And it’s not as if you would let her take any other man’s number anyway.”
I’m quiet for a moment as his words sink in. Alina and I aren’t anything. But neither would I let her go home with another man. Would I? It shouldn’t affect me. So why does just the thought bother me so much?
River’s smiling now. “Grovel, my friend. It’s all you have time for. I’d watch that one, actually, she was pretty smooth. Good luck with her ever speaking to you again.”
“Fuck off.” I flip him off and he laughs.
“Anyway, now I gotta suck up to my wife because she’s mad,” he says as he waves and heads to his car.
I watch as he gets in, and they drive off just as my phone starts buzzing again.
Maria.
Fuck. I approach my car that’s waiting at the curb. I know she’ll continue calling until I answer. Persistence is the one thing we have equal footing on.
I sit in the back of the car but don’t offer my driver direction as I answer my phone.
“What do you want?” I huff into the phone.
“What do I want?” she asks, flabbergasted “What did you do?” she screams. “I warned you to not fuck up my relationships with my friends. Why are you even hanging around Alina? I thought you went to New York for work.”
“She’s a paid contractor working for my friend. We run into one another from time to time.”
“And she is my friend,” she warns. “I’ll tell Mom. Is that what you want? Me to go and tell her you’re trying to sleep with my friends?”
“I did that once.”
Shit, maybe more than once.
But who’s counting?
The juvenile threat of dobbing on me to my mother shouldn’t be as effective as it is. But the truth was we both adored our parents, and no one could be more relentless than my mother. It’d only cause more of a headache as she theatrically claimed she raised a brute of a son.