Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
I’ll be able to focus and forget all about the way her huge blue eyes filled with tears she bravely blinked back when she found out she’d been left behind. And when her eyes glowed with pride and love already when she talked about her farty dog. I’ll be able to forget all about how she’s clearly one of those people who wears her heart where it counts and gives it to the whole world, even though she knows it’s going to get beat up, disappointed, and hurt. I already know that too. I know what she’s giving up for this. I also know she is good straight down to that heart-of-gold soul that so few people have.
I pay the cab driver, even though Weland fights me on it. I don’t let her win. I give the guy an extra forty bucks, and she raises a brow.
“Don’t you usually pay after the ride?”
Right. Yes, I guess a person does generally do that. I still have to go back to the club and get my car.
There’s a beat of silence in the backseat of the cab. She looks at me, and I look at her. There isn’t any expectation. Not on my part. Not on hers. It’s not this heavy, weighted silence. That’s why what she says next is so weird.
“Do you…uh…want to see my place?”
“See it?”
“Inside,” she replies.
“Oh.” Fuck. I need to say no. I need to politely decline and tell her to have a good night. I need to get back in my rental car, get back on a plane, and get far away from here now that I know my contract is in no danger of being broken and my company is safe. “Sure.”
Her eyes widen. “Sure?”
No, not sure. The opposite. I mean the opposite. I need to tell the cab driver to wait for me while I walk her to her door and come back and… “If you’re sure.”
“I think I’m sure. For like tea. And talk about dogs. And a change of clothes that don’t smell like old milk and nasty booze.”
I think she smells fine, still like the sea breeze. And I like that her hair is just a little bit frizzy at the roots, where it got a good soaking. I hate that it happened, but it didn’t change the fact that this woman is gorgeous and adorable.
My heart does a strange blip that feels like my pulse is going all wrong. Probably because it is. I swear thud-a-bump shouldn’t be a thing. It should be ba-bump. Ba-bump. But it’s not. I can hear my heartbeat racing in my ears, and it sounds an awful lot like bad decision making.
“Alright then.”
We bail out of the taxi and the driver peels out of the parking lot, shaking his head. It’s not even the last call, and he’s already had one silent ride with a strange ending. I’m sure he’s seen worse. At least this ride didn’t end in him having to hose the back seat down at a car wash because someone yakked. I wouldn’t be able to handle it. Ugh.
I follow Weland to her front door. Her condo complex is kind of, for lack of a better word, dumpy. It’s not the nice kind of place money can buy, but I guess most of the money went to her brother’s surgeries and aftercare. Plus, this agreement was to remain secret, and there was no way she could explain a sudden influx of money. People watched her video, but just one video that went viral wasn’t enough to buy or rent a real place, as she termed it. She gives guitar lessons for a living, so she had to get a place that matched her income, or people would ask what was going on.
I mean, probably.
She rattles her key in the lock. The condos are connected together barracks-style, with gray vinyl on the outside. They’re tall and thin, with little front porches and one parking spot each. I’m assuming the little red sedan in front of the place belongs to Weland. It doesn’t look safe, which makes my blood boil. I should have bought her a brand-new one. I still could. Except people will ask questions, and I don’t want to do anything that leads back to me, that leads back to my cousins getting leverage against me to prove the marriage is fake. They know I have a wife, but they don’t know who she is or where she is, and as long as they don’t know that, they can’t prove it’s not legit. They’ve no doubt tried. Many, many times. They haven’t found anything concrete, and I just have one more year to get through. Then, the shares will be irrevocably mine, and the company I can’t bear to lose because it’s my everything will be safe.