Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
For some reason, Ollie didn’t believe me when I told him I’d always wanted to see India for myself until he saw me immediately jumping online to buy some travel gear.
I can’t blame him, though. None of his brothers want to come with us. Poor Ollie; he’s probably used to just going places on his own.
“Are you ready to go, beautiful?” Mason asks as he swings the door open and pops his head in through the gap. He takes one look inside and sees the twins at my desk. “Ah, damn it. You guys beat me here. I thought I’d be the first one.”
“Not a chance,” Nathan says.
“Stop blocking the door, Mason.” I hear Liam’s voice from outside. He’s probably standing just behind the door right now.
Mason turns around until all I can see through the gap in the doorway is the dark hair on the back of his head. “Aw, shit. You’re here, too?”
“I have to say, Ava, you’re a good influence on us. We never finished work at this time of day before.” Noah pays no mind to the little argument between Mason and Liam at the door.
Living with these five men, I have to ignore things sometimes. Otherwise, I’d go crazy from the amount of information I need to process. No wonder their parents could only handle them one week at a time. They must've been a handful as teenagers.
“Have you made the dinner reservation?” Liam asks Noah as soon as Mason lets him into my office.
“Of course.”
“Good.” Liam approaches my desk, carrying a pretty little box in his hands. With a suave smile and his deep, sexy voice, he says, “This is for you, Ava.”
“Seriously?” I smile. “You shouldn’t have. I’m dying of happiness already.”
“That’s fine,” Nathan says jokingly. “Still a better way to die than having Ollie get you killed in India.”
“Oh, it won’t be so bad.” Looking up at Liam, I ask, “Can I open it here?”
“Of course.”
“It won’t be so bad,” I repeat to Nathan as my fingers tease open the ribbon wrapped around the box. “We’ll stay safe. Ollie travels a lot. I’m sure he knows what to do.”
“Did someone mention my name?” Ollie asks as the door opens once again.
It’s only the first day of my office being fully operational, and it’s already the place to be.
“Yeah. They say you’re going to get me killed in India.” I keep my attention on the box as Nathan and Ollie start to bicker among themselves. When I pull the lid off and move the tissue paper aside, I see fine, delicate, black lace fabric and squeal, jumping up to my feet.
“You like it?” Liam asks, although he knows for sure that I do because I told him when I saw the dress at the mall last week.
“Yes. Very much. Thank you.”
“Put it on,” Noah says.
“Yeah. Take off your blouse and pencil skirt first.” Standing by my desk, Mason leans closer and cocks an eyebrow.
I laugh. “No way. I’ll go get changed in the bathroom and meet you guys here.”
A chorus of disappointed noises fill my office as my heels make muted click-clack sounds on the carpet.
It takes me no time to slip out of my work clothes and into the elegant dress Liam’s bought for me. It fits me like a dream.
I smile as I look at myself in the mirror. I’m still not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but I’m okay with that now.
The Hunters have a lot to do with why I have better self-esteem these days, and the work that I do also gives me a lot of confidence—I like that I get to work with important people and solve interesting problems.
But above all, I think getting away from my mom has helped by removing her toxic ideas from my thoughts.
I’m still sad and disappointed that she won’t put aside our differences to fix our relationship, but I don’t know what I expected from her. Instead of trying to see things from my perspective, she’s just been ranting about how everybody’s talking about “us” now—as in me, her, and my dad.
I let out a big sigh and re-touch my make-up.
I try not to think about Ashbourne. I’m a lot happier that way. I see that life’s so much bigger than Ashbourne now, and I’m excited to see what else my future holds.
I don’t worry about what people think of me or about living normally.
I don’t think it would be fair to give the Hunters all the credit for helping me grow as a person. At the same time, I wouldn’t have gotten here without them.
When I first saw them, just outside the restaurant in Ashbourne, I never would’ve thought that accidental, brief meeting would somehow lead me here, but life’s funny that way. You never know what’s going to happen next.