Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 181(@200wpm)___ 144(@250wpm)___ 120(@300wpm)
He strode to the door and yanked it open. “What!”
Four intense men in black, sunglasses on, and ear pieces in stood there in a staggered position leading to a black town car. A thin black man walked toward him from the car, his brown gaze moving over him in an impassive look, both judging and dismissing him with out saying a word.
“Time to come home, Ms. Hunter.” The words were cold and announced around him like he wasn’t even there. “You’ve been summoned.”
“And if I refuse, Timmons?”
“Any means necessary, Ms. Hunter.” His voice came out resigned like this was a familiar action.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he demanded of the man before him. The man didn’t deign to give him any answer.
Rayla’s presence at his back had him slamming out his arm, blocking her from moving by him. The two men closest shifted their weight. He knew the move. While not physically moving nearer, he read easily they were ready to jump into action if it was needed.
“No baby, you’re not leaving without us having a discussion.”
“Step aside, Mr. Owens.” The skinny man before him tugged on the sleeve of his suitcoat.
Seriously? Who the fuck wears a full three-piece suit in the wilds of Tennessee early morning?
Besides these five men.
“Go to hell.”
Angling so he didn’t put his back to them but so he could at least lay eyes on her, he searched her face for something. There was nothing. No hope, fear, joy, sorrow. Not a goddamn thing. That fucking blank slate.
“Baby, look at me.” He waited half a beat until she finally lifted her gaze to his. “Good girl.”
The pulse jumped at her throat and she tugged her lower lip in her teeth before she pulled herself back together and affected that thousand yard stare he wanted to kiss off her face. Yeah, she loved hearing that from him.
“This isn’t what you think. Give me a chance to explain.”
Rayla ran her gaze over him, from the top of his head, down over his bare chest to where his jeans hung low on his hips, unbuttoned, to the tops of his feet. Then she brushed by him and walked past the five men waiting.
Ryker took a step off the porch when two moved closer to him. Beyond the car, Cole stood there.
“Everything okay, Rayla dear?”
“Of course, Cole. Heading home early.”
Ryker growled as the man neared his woman. While he couldn’t overhear their shared words but it killed him, something died inside him when she slid into the back of the shiny town car without a look back at him. The others loaded up and drove her out of his life.
Cole ran his icy and calculating gaze over him as the car moved away.
“We need to talk.”
Chapter 8
“I don’t know how you even thought that I wouldn’t know exactly where you were the entire time. It’s bad enough you can’t even lose weight to be pretty so I could use you to leverage some favors, but now you go off slumming with a man who is the brother of the piece of shit you decided to befriend.”
Rayla didn’t speak, it wasn’t only not required, her father, the senator, wanted her to listen. Not voice an opinion.
She perched on the edge of the copper brown leather square arm accent chair in her father’s office. The opulence of his home office made her stomach revolt. The money he could have spent on something worthwhile instead of posing for photos to help his political career.
In passing she’d heard how comfortable the chairs were but as she’d never been allowed to lean back in one and simply enjoy it, she would have to take the gossip for gospel. Even now, over twenty-five, she still wanted to hide when he began one of his tirades.
Darius Jamal Hunter stood six foot two inches in his socked feet. When he’d been in college, he’d played football and boxed. Both sports had given him a physique he’d kept on maintaining as he got older. Pitch black eyes that never looked at her in love, at least she couldn’t recall them doing so.
He was a magician, made people see one thing on the outside of the home, when he was in office but behind closed doors, she knew the side of him the public never had to witness.
“Your mother used to have hopes for you. Not high, because look at you, you’re a slob, but some. She’d wanted you to be able to mingle at parties and help further our cause and our place in the history of this country. But you’re so selfish all you can do is fuck it up.”
He pushed to his feet, large strong hands braced on the shiny oak desk that had to weigh a few hundred pounds. The intricate detail had always impressed her but she’d never been allowed to get close enough to actually take the time to see what it was like.