Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
“I understand the contract and I’m happy to sign,” she replied.
They’d been at the club for a few hours, taking a nice tour.
Everything about the last few days had been nice, and she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to work up the will to leave them.
Could she trust them with her secrets?
She was practically living with them. Oh, the majority of her things were in Heather’s motel room. She’d taken her friend up on her offer, and now she wasn’t losing thirty-nine ninety-nine a day. But she’d spent every night back at their place. Josh had taken to coming into the café right as her shift ended, and then Grim picked them both up in his truck. Sometimes they grabbed dinner before heading back to the ranch. Sometimes they went up to the big house and spent an hour sitting around the table, laughing and talking and enjoying each other’s company.
She was sinking into the joy of being a member of a real family, and it was amazing and frightening all at the same time. The scariest thing was how calm she’d been. She believed Heather. When she got back from Colorado, Nic was going to talk to her. Heather knew about domestic violence survivors. Heather would listen to her.
And then she would be ready to talk to Josh and Grim.
It was almost time to make her stand.
“I would normally ask for you to have someone negotiate on your behalf,” Case explained.
Ah, when he opened his mouth, she could see there was a real man under all his blond, god-like beauty. “But we live in the twenty-first century, and I’m an adult woman who can make her own decisions.”
“Yeah, she’s deciding right now how hard the spanking is going to go.” But Josh was chuckling, and he winked at her.
“She didn’t mean any disrespect, Master Case.” Grim was definitely the rules follower of their family. Josh made the rules. Nicole didn’t care about the rules, so that left Grim.
When she thought about it, they meshed together quite well. Without Grim, Josh could become a possessive tyrant. Without Josh, Grim might never ask for what he wanted.
Without them, she would be so fucking sad.
Case Taggart had a wide grin on his face. “Oh, I think that’s a perfect response. Don’t you, baby? Come here. I’d like you to meet my wife, Mia.”
The woman who walked in the room was this man’s natural mate. She was tall and blonde and stunning. She grinned as she sank down on the couch next to her husband. She leaned over, brushing her lips across his, and it was obvious these were two people deeply in love.
“I thought you were in New York settling Heath in,” he said.
“He’s happily in his new condo, and I caught a ride back with Riley.” The gorgeous Mia—who reminded her a lot of her new friend Heather—turned their way. “Our son is taking over the marketing department for a division of our family company.”
“Yes, and as a Taggart,” Case grumbled. “Damn brother-in-law offered my only child a million and his own private jet if he would legally change his name to Lawless.”
“He was joking about that.” Mia’s nose wrinkled. “My brother can be obnoxious at times. I’m the lone girl, so Heath is the only one of the nieces and nephews without the Lawless name. Just wait until one of Drew’s daughters gets married. He’s going to lose his mind.”
Now Nic was staring for another reason. “Lawless?”
“Did I not mention that?” Josh asked like forgetting your family was close friends with one of the greatest technological minds of the last century was no big deal. “Yeah, Mia’s family runs a company called 4L. Case is the head of their security division.”
“And Mia stays far, far away,” Mia said with a smile. “Our main offices are here in Austin, but there’s a big 4L office in New York, and guess where my son decided to be?”
“He needs some freedom, baby,” Case said. “Honestly, he needs to be somewhere where neither of our last names mean anything. That’s what your brother doesn’t understand. As a Taggart as long as he stays out of the security business he’s a regular guy. There is no outrunning the Lawless name. Josh knows all about that. Is that why you never changed your name, Grim?”
Grim seemed taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?”
“I thought they adopted you. Jack did, right?” Case asked.
From what she could tell, the Barnes-Fleetwood family treated Grim exactly the same way they treated Josh and Olivia. If she hadn’t been told they’d taken Grim in, she would have assumed he was their biological child.
“He did that so he could protect me from my stepfather, and I’ll always be grateful, but I loved my dad.” Grim reached out, his fingers tangling with hers as though he needed support to talk about the subject. “My biological father was a good man, and changing my name felt like I was erasing him. Especially since my brother did change his last name. Not legally, but he refers to himself as Smith not Burch. I guess I didn’t want to erase him.”