Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 59044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 295(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Also, I had no freaking idea what he meant about behaving. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to ditch him at a club. If nothing else, he could text Eric to scoop him up and bring him to our next location.
And since leaving him was the only thing I’d been punished for, I figured I would be relatively safe while having some fun with Mae and Leah.
We were only maybe two hours into the night when I realized that while Mae and Leah hadn’t been making it into the gossip sites these days, they had not calmed down in the least.
My guess was their family had hired a really good PR team for them to help spin stories and a ‘fixer’ crew to shut down other stories they didn’t want to get out.
This was confirmed after we left the first club where they’d drunk me under the table. Because in the backseat of the car, Leah passed me a piece of paper.
I knew an NDA when I saw one.
“Really?” I asked, offended. I mean, we’d been partying together since we were teenagers. We’d done very sketchy shit in the past. And I’d never shared about it. For no other reason than implicating them also implicated myself.
Mae sighed as she pushed her red hair back from her pretty face. “You get it. It’s like you with the bodyguard,” she said, waving toward the partition. “If we don’t agree to make people sign them, our parents cut us off.”
“Alright,” I said, signing the paper. “I get it.”
“Though, we are trying to… get our own thing going,” Mae said, folding the paper, and sticking it in her purse.
“Really? Like what?” I asked.
To that, Leah’s lips twitched. “Renewable energy.”
Which definitely seemed like a purposeful slap in the face to a family legacy in oil.
I wouldn’t pretend to understand their family dynamics. But the handful of times I’d been around their father, he’d been cold and judgmental. So if he was like that publicly toward his girls, I couldn’t imagine what he was like in private.
“That’s amazing. Does your father know?”
“Not yet. We… figured out how to keep our names out of things until we know for sure if it will be a successful venture,” Leah said. “But… it’s looking like it is going somewhere.”
I knew what my trust was like.
And I knew the sisters had money not only from their parents, but also a trust from their grandfather, who’d adored them.
If they were being careful with their money, and investing a decent portion of it, I could see how that money could stack up in investments over time.
“I have my fingers crossed for you. It would be great not to have to live by your parents’ rules.” The girls were several years older than me, after all, and living under a much stricter thumb than I was.
“What about you?” Mae asked as she pulled out a mirror to swipe on more light pink gloss.
“What about me?” I asked.
“Any business ventures on the horizon?” she asked.
“Oh, well, I have my brand endorsements,” I said.
“But even if you are doing the best of the best, what is that… a million a year?” Leah asked. “Don’t you want more for yourself?”
I honestly hadn’t given it much thought.
Some part of me had been too focused on building my “brand,” even though my brand didn’t actually sell anything. Save for the items that I was paid to hock to my followers.
And, to an extent, I thought that bringing in any income was ‘good enough’ considering I didn’t need to work.
Was that enough, though?
Should I have been striving for more?
I mean, I’d done what was expected of me all my life. I’d been a straight-A student all through school. I’d gone to college like my father demanded.
After that, though, I’d just wanted to… live a little.
That’s what I’d been doing.
I figured there was still plenty of time to sort out my future.
“Whoa, okay. Didn’t mean to give you an existential crisis. Come on, let’s not talk about life stuff. Let’s talk about fun stuff,” Mae said.
“Yeah, like Mr. Yummypants up there,” Leah agreed, pressing a hand to her heart. “How do you stand having him in your place all the time without jumping him?”
Because, apparently, he doesn’t want to fuck me.
I couldn’t say that, of course.
“He’s… very serious,” I said.
“Yeah, but that’s the best part,” Leah agreed. “Seeing him lose control.”
“I’m not sure if Julian is capable of losing control,” I admitted.
“Well… we will see about that, won’t we?” Mae asked as Eric pulled up to the curb of what looked like a dive bar.
“Really? Here?” I asked, frowning.
“It’s a secret,” Leah said, grabbing my hand, and pulling me with her onto the street, through the dive bar, into the back alley, then toward a really sketchy set of steps that led down below ground level.