Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 157308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 787(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
“Romeo and Juliet,” I said as I swiped through the photos. “Think their story will end as tragically when these photos come out?”
He let out a low whistle. “Worse. Their grandfathers ran into each other at a gala last year.” Rafael grabbed my hand and escaped with me back up the hill. “They got into a fight. Pushing seventy years old and Natale shoves him over the appetizer table. The hatred is very much alive.”
“That’s all I need to know.” I typed a message on his phone. “Wilder said there’s a way to send a text and mask the number. Can we do that now?”
We reclaimed our seats and our dinner. “Sure thing. What’s the message?”
I showed him.
Your boyfriend and Gabriella Montana are banging in his beach house. If you want to catch them at it, you better hurry.
“I won’t send her the pictures,” I said. “I want her to rush down here, anvil pressing harder on her chest the closer she gets—the whole time praying it’s not true and this is all some cheap trick. She arrives, sees the car, asks herself why Giovanni came out here without telling her, but still not letting herself believe that’s the reason.
“Then, Annika bangs on the door, demanding he open up. They try to run before she darts around and spots them naked and sweaty on the couch, but it’s too late. The sweet, loving relationship she thought she was in crashes into the bluffs and explodes in her face. The same sentence she and that limp-dick granted my sister.”
I grinned at Rafael over my peach soda. “It’s all in the buildup. You taught me that.”
“I am... very turned on right now.”
“Rafael!”
“What?” The devil fell to shame before that trickster’s smirk. “I don’t see a ring on that finger.”
“I can’t believe you’d make that joke. Just give me the phone.”
He did as I asked, passing the phone back to me for the honor of hitting send.
Relaxed, I kicked back to eat and enjoy the starry night with a chance of oncoming storms. I tried to fight it, but my eyes kept drifting to my bare finger.
“Do you think Saylor took my ring to force me to go to her house and get it?”
“I’m sure the thought crossed her mind. Hold on a sec.” Rafael took off his headphones and replaced them with his hearing aids. Scooting in closer, he rested his hand on my chair arm, leaning in. “Okay, we’re good.”
“I’m sorry.” I traced his ear’s blue companion. “Is my voice bothering you? We don’t have to talk—”
“Your voice is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.” I swallowed hard, wishing I could look somewhere else, and powerless as he trapped my gaze. “It’s not you, darling. It’s the cicadas. Night ambience to everyone else, Chinese water torture to me.
“It’s a noise-canceling hearing aid. Let’s me tune out the background noise and hear you. Only you.”
I pushed him back a little bit, if only to steady my heartbeat. “Got it,” I said, voice wavering. “What were we— Oh yeah, Saylor. I have to go. There’s something she owes me... and something I owe her.”
“If you go, you go in alone. That invitation admits one.”
“I’m not afraid of her. Saylor hides behind her money and her accident of birth. She doesn’t know what it is to fight for something real. Her quest for social domination is shallow. My fight for Winter is the sole purpose of my life. That’s why no matter what happens, I’ll never stop.”
Rafael’s phone lit up, interrupting his reply.
Annika: Who is this?
Annika: You’re lying. Giovanni would never do that to me.
Nothing for ten minutes, then a flood rained down, kicking up a buzzing worse than the singing cicadas.
Annika: It’s you, Rikva. Bitch! I warned you what would happen if you didn’t back off. Giovanni doesn’t want you. Your lies won’t get between us.
Annika: Who is this?!
Annika: If you have the balls to send that text, you should have the balls to reveal yourself.
“I hope she’s not texting and driving,” I said mildly. “Very dangerous.”
Laughing, we clinked can and glass.
Rafael counted it down. Exactly twenty-six minutes from the time we sent the text, headlights came barreling down the dirt road. I dropped my soda as Annika’s car Tokyo-drifted alongside Giovanni’s, skidding into the drive and falling out before the car was even off.
The small, dark figure that was her flew at the front door, playing out the scene as perfectly as I pictured.
Annika followed our path, running around the side of the house and—
“Ahhh!”
“There goes part five,” Rafael cheered. “There’s something to be said for taking charge of your own happiness.”
I giggled. “I just wish we had—”
He lifted something out of the trunk, beaming wide. “Binoculars?”
I barely stopped myself from saying I loved him. I learned my lesson from the last Dumont brother I said that to.