Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Rationally, I knew that I’d probably dodged a bullet. Sleeping with him would definitely complicate things and not for the better. And yet I couldn’t deny that the thought of Scott in the arms of another woman made my blood curdle.
I’d gone out for coffee later that morning and caught the headline splashed across The New York Post. On the front cover, a full color picture of the two of us locked in a passionate kiss. The headline read: True Love. The byline: Heir to the Blackstone Empire Meets His Match. Judging by the picture, I would’ve believed it too if I hadn’t known better.
Thus, the deep thoughts.
The jet powered down and the stairs unfolded onto the tarmac. The cold hit me like a brick to the face as soon as I took my first step out of the plane. I’d forgotten how much harsher the weather was here. It had a biting quality you didn’t get in New York. Pulling my knit hat down over my ears, I walked down the steps and glanced up. A brand-new black pickup truck with chrome trim sat idling a few feet away.
Scott jumped out. He was dressed in a black down jacket and a dark knit hat covered his head. His long legs encased in worn jeans and boots carried him to me in a determined stride, devouring the distance between us. The scruff was back. Looked like he was growing the beard again. In one glove-covered hand, he held a bouquet of black magic roses. That’s not what made my lonely heart skip a beat and my stomach feel swampy, though. What did it was the hard resolve on his face and the spark of interest in his eyes.
God help me, I was developing a serious crush.
My feet stopped. My brain too, powering off at the sight of him. I swear I was seconds from looking over my shoulder to see if it was actually me he was eating up with his eyes or someone else was standing behind me.
Marching up, he pressed a quick kiss on my lips, grabbed my carry-on bag from me, and shoved the bouquet in my hand.
“These are for you,” he announced as if this was completely normal behavior for us. “The dogs wanted to come, but I didn’t want them crowding you.” He turned abruptly and started walking back to the pickup while I remained frozen in place, as still as the ice sculpture we’d had at our wedding celebration.
When he realized that I wasn’t following, Scott glanced over his shoulder and seeing me look disoriented, walked back and took my free hand. “C’mon,” he said, pulling me along. “I’m freezing my nuts off and it looks like we’re getting more snow tonight.”
Did the plane travel into a parallel universe where this Scott was competing for husband of the year, or was this another one of his pranks?
Opening the passenger door, he helped me in and still I said nothing, too dumbfounded by the change in him to form an articulate thought, let alone voice it out loud. The pickup smelled good. New leather and a faint trace of him. Sexy, sophisticated, and just a little bit spicy. He climbed behind the wheel. Both of us sat quietly for a minute. Eventually, I found my voice. “What’s going on?” Because well, frankly, Scott was acting like a real husband, and I didn’t know what to make of it. Moreover, blind trust? Yeah, no. That ship sailed after the cabin incident.
Looking out the windshield, he exhaled. “I want a do-over.” He looked at me. “Can I have a do-over?”
The pathetically earnest look on his face laid waste to my defenses. I was so tempted to trust him. “Is this another one of your pranks?”
He smirked. “No.”
I nodded and he put the pickup in drive.
Scott
“So…you’re gonna date your wife?”
Ryan side-eyed me like I’d lost my goddamn mind. The horses we were riding set their feet to go downhill, the ground made slick from the six inches of snow that had fallen overnight. We were supposed to be checking the herd in the lower valley. Instead, it had turned into a third-degree interrogation from my best friend over the state of my marriage.
My marriage.
That word no longer made me desperate to find the bottom of a Macallan bottle. On the contrary, it had me considering how to improve it and no one was more surprised than I was.
“Yeah,” I said, more than a little proud of myself and feeling good about it. I’d flown out early the day after the wedding party, and with each mile I’d put between me and Sydney, the more I’d felt the urgency to see her again.
The same woman who’d told me to sleep with other women…
Real nice. She thought I couldn’t keep my dick in my pants, and she was about to get schooled on how wrong she was about me. I was as disciplined as I was determined to get what I wanted, which was my wife under me and over me. Any position that got her naked body touching mine would do.