Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“I think you were wrong. I need coffee. Or at least an empty mug in hand I can throw at you.”
He grinned, wide and white, and my breath left me.
God, I forgot how drop-dead beautiful he was when he smiled.
He then leaned in and touched his mouth to mine.
When he lifted away, he wasn’t smiling anymore.
“Michael is a low-level player. He’s also ambitious. I’ll take care of him. You can show her the pictures, but don’t do anything stupid anymore. If Lena had looked in his windows, she might have seen him cutting coke. And he wouldn’t have liked that. Get me?”
“Yikes,” I breathed.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “So, you get me?”
I nodded.
“You need anything?” he asked.
I thought about orgasm three, but asked back, “Like what?”
“Clothes, shoes, for you? The same or toys for the boy? Tuition for your last year of college?”
It was my turn to smile. “I think we’re covered.”
“Mm…” he murmured, and I had a feeling I knew what that meant.
“We’re fine, Darius.”
“Great, baby. Gotta go before he gets up.”
I really, really, really wanted to encourage him to just stick his head in and watch Liam sleep for at least a beat. He was adorable when he was asleep. Though, it must be said, he was pretty adorable when he wasn’t asleep too.
But I got it. If I took one look at our boy, I wouldn’t have been able to stay away either.
Patience.
“Okay.”
“Later,” he said.
Oh yes, there’d be a later.
I smiled.
Love you, I thought but did not say.
He saw it anyway. I knew when he dipped in to touch his mouth to mine again.
But he was way stronger than me.
He left it at that.
And then he left me.
* * * *
By the way, I was right in my earlier thoughts.
My envelope at the first of the month didn’t have five thousand in it.
It had seven.
Chapter Five
In It to Win It
Rock Chick Rewind
Still some time ago, but now even less…
I pulled into the church on a screech of tires, driving like a lunatic because Toni had forgotten her shoes at home, she only trusted me to go get them, and she was due to walk down the aisle to Tony in T-minus five minutes and counting.
I swung into a parking spot that was way too far away from the sanctuary, lamenting the fact I hadn’t changed out of my strappy heels before I went on this mission. I had to run if I was going to get there on time, and I had maid of honor duties to attend to, I didn’t fancy doing them with a sprained ankle and skinned knees.
However, I froze in place after I caught movement in my rearview.
Movement that was Toni, sprinting toward me in her wedding gown, the ruffle at her hip flapping, her veil flying out behind her.
She was even carrying her bouquet.
Quickly, I hit the locks to open the doors as she hit the passenger side.
She threw it open then tossed the bouquet at me.
I caught it.
She folded in, slammed the door, turned to me and screeched, “Drive, bitch, drive!”
“Okay, slow down, take a breath and tell me what’s going on.”
She sucked in air through her nose, let it out like a bull, and said, “Okay, like, this is forever, like…yeah?”
“Yes,” I said calmly. “Ideally, marriage is forever.”
“What if he’s a secret perv?” she asked.
I smiled encouragingly. “You’ve been living with him for four years, Tone. He’s not a secret perv.”
“What if he’s, like, you know, that Arnold Schwarzenegger character in that movie.” She snapped her fingers repeatedly. “What’s that movie?”
“Terminator?”
“No.”
“Predator?”
“No.”
“Conan?”
“No!” she shouted. “The one Jamie Lee Curtis was in, wearing that hot LBD.”
“True Lies?”
She snapped again, but only once, ending it pointing at me. “That one. What if he’s that?”
“A secret agent?”
She nodded. “One that gets me dangling from a helicopter. Girl, you know I’m scared of heights.”
“No, you’re scared of how happy you are right now and that it’s going to end. Sorry to say, honey, it’s going to end.”
She blinked at me.
“Then it’s going to come back. Then it’s going to end. Things are going to get hard. Then they’re going to smooth out. And before you know it, you and Tony are going to be watching your grandchildren open their Christmas presents, knowing you don’t have to cook that big dinner anymore, but you are going to be critical of your daughter-in-law’s ability to do it right, and then you’re off on one of your many retirement cruises for New Years’.”
She turned to face forward, folded double and dropped her head in her hands.
I reached out and rubbed her back.
“What if I fuck it up?” she asked her lap.
I caught sight of Toni’s mom, Vanessa, leaning to peer into the passenger window, backed by Lena, who was wearing the same strapless aubergine number as me, skintight, with a filmy bunch of material in the same color at the left side of our waists that drifted down the center of the skirt in a flirty ruffle.