Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
His fingers around my wrists flex and tighten with irritation. “Who told you to find me here? Who was it? Was it that motherfucker out there? Was it Ledger? I’m gonna —”
“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” I scream then, fisting my hands in his tight grip. “Do you understand? Your bruises were healing. Your bruises were fading. They were going away. You were getting better. You’d just stopped looking like you were hit by a wrecking ball and now you look as if you should be dead. You look as if you’re going to be dead soon. And I want to know why. Why were you out there? What were you doing? Why were you fighting when you’re a soccer player? When you’re not a freaking fighter. What is this? What is this stupid fucking place where people were chanting while you were getting beaten up like it’s the Hunger Games.”
“Listen —”
“No,” I scream again. “You listen. You! If you don’t answer me right fucking now or if you make some stupid off-hand, sarcastic remark and try to boss me around or gross me out, I swear to fucking God, Reign Marcus Davidson, I will bring this whole place down. I will burn this whole place down. Burn it to the ground, okay? And then I’m going to cry and sob like the hysterical, dramatic girl that you think I am. So you answer me right now: What the fuck were you doing out there?”
I’d think that screaming like a banshee and getting all up in his face would probably calm me down a little bit. But I’m just as keyed up as I was when I was watching that awful fight out there. And it doesn’t help that Reign keeps me waiting for a couple more seconds while he stares down at me with anger reflecting in his eyes, and grits his teeth.
Then, very, very reluctantly, he rumbles, “Fighting.”
If he was trying to appease me, then he needs to do better than that. “I thought this was a gym.”
“It is.”
“What kind of a gym is this?”
“The kind that puts on occasional fights.”
“Why were you fighting?”
“Because it’s my summer job.”
“Summer job?”
“A job you have over the summer.”
I breathe out sharply. “Since when do you have a summer job?”
“Since I can’t exactly have a job like this and play soccer.”
“Don’t get smart with me,” I snap, lifting my chin. “Why do you need a job when you’re filthy rich?”
This time around when he grits his teeth and works his bruised jaw back and forth, I feel like he’s turning his teeth to dust.
Or ash maybe.
With the way his reddish-brown eyes are on fire.
“Because I’m not,” he says finally.
“You’re not what?”
“Filthy rich.”
“What, you’re —”
“My father,” he says with a sharp breath, “wrote me out of his will before he died.”
“What?”
His nostrils flare. “Which means he cancelled my Amex and took away the keys to his filthy rich coffers. And so now I have to work for it. Like the rest of the mere mortals. But with soccer and my classes, I can only do it over the summer. Hence a summer job.”
“Why?” I ask, frowning. “Why would he do that?”
“Probably got tired of putting up with his asshole son.”
“No, that’s not an answer.” I glare at him. “Tell me why he did that. And…” I lick my lips. “Is that why you didn’t show up for the funeral? Because of the will. Because you were mad at him?”
“I didn’t come to the funeral,” he bites out, “because I couldn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
His fingers grow punishingly tight around my wrists. “It means that if I’d set foot on the Davidson property or anywhere near my family, I would’ve been arrested.”
“A-arrested?”
“Yes. That was my father’s last wish. To get a restraining order against me.” Then, “His lawyer was very helpful in explaining all the terms over the call.”
My breaths are very loud in this moment.
Very loud and very broken too I think.
Very strangled.
Just like my heart inside my chest.
My first instinct is to say that I can’t believe it. That Howard Davidson, the generous and kind man that he was, would never have done something like this to his son. He loved his son. He did everything that he could to reform him while Reign did everything that he could to rebuff and reject and disappoint his family.
But that’s not true, is it?
That’s not true at all.
I’m beginning to see that.
“You can wipe that fucking look off your face,” he tells me harshly. “I probably wouldn’t have showed up, even without the restraining order.”
He would have.
I know it.
I know it in my heart.
Even though I’ve just found out that I probably don’t know anything about his father and their relationship — like, two seconds ago — and even though I’ve only known Reign, really known him, for about two weeks, I still can say with every certainty that he would have showed up for his dad’s funeral.