Total pages in book: 26
Estimated words: 25544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 128(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
It's why I forced myself to hire Pettyfer years ago, and why he's been asked to sign NDAs for every salary increase he did nothing to deserve. It was all for her, not him. Because Sandy Pettyfer is a lazy, overbearing idiot, I knew there isn't a company in the world that would have paid him a tenth of what I have. If I let him go, I knew it would only be a matter of time before she’d suffer as his wife. And of course, there’s no way I would ever let that happen.
For as long as she’s married to him, I’d keep the douchebag on my payroll.
For as long as she’s married to him, I also swore never to cause trouble between them.
But now that there are just three more days...
Three more days, dammit!
I wake up early in the morning and make money until it's time to go back to the hotel, and I work out until my body has nothing left to give and sleep is the only option.
The hotel is the same one I've used in this city for nine years. The staff at the front desk no longer ask for my name, and the bellman knows the floor my suite is on without being told. I pay enough that it would be embarrassing if any of them did not.
This place is almost perfect, really. But since this is a hotel that doesn’t exclusively cater to my needs, that means being forced to deal with other guests, which can prove unnecessarily time-consuming when they’re of the opposite sex.
A blonde in a black dress detaches from a group near the bar as I cross the marble. She tries to catch my attention. “Excuse me?” I don’t look her way, but it’s still not enough to make her give up. She even goes as far as to try touching me—
“Excuse me?”
Try is the operative word here. But since my extremely well-trained bodyguards go wherever I go, she never makes it. Her fingers don’t even come within inches of me, and my security detail deals with her with such efficient speed that I wasn’t forced to slow down or break my stride for her.
Women like her just make me more impatient because they only remind me of how the only woman I want is still not mine.
One day at a time, Everford.
Just take this one fucking day at a time.
On the sixth day, Reynolds finally visits me at my office.
"It's done, sir."
He's been in contact with the lawyer we've hired to represent Nicole, but Reynolds has also made sure that no one will be able to trace anything back to me. It's better and cleaner that way.
However...
The tone Reynolds uses has my guard up.
“What’s the catch?” I ask curtly. “Does he think he can get money from her?”
“Our contact says he wants to speak to Ms. Nicole if she wants him to divorce her on the grounds she’s chosen.”
Chapter Eighteen
"WHAT ABOUT THIS?" HEIDI gestures to the dress that's really pretty...and pretty expensive, too. "Or this?" She gestures to the pantsuit that's just as pretty...and pretty not much me, since I've never worn a pantsuit my entire life, and it doesn't seem right that I'd start wearing one now, of all days.
I look at Heidi and Judy, feeling rather helpless, and the two of them look at each other like parents trying to silently strategize on how to break the truth to their little girl that Santa doesn't exist.
The thought almost makes me smile. I think it's because of how everyone's been so nice, that even though I'm forty-two, they make me feel like I'm fourteen instead.
Today they want me to look good for my meeting with Sandy. I appreciate that, really, but...
I clear my throat, and when Judy and Heidi look at me—
"You just want the shirt and jeans."
"I just want the shirt and jeans."
We end up speaking at the same time, and while it does make all of us laugh, it also has me wondering, rather wistfully and apprehensively—
How can this be real life?
Everything just feels so surreal but at the same time terrifying and undeserved. Like this very instance, I'm inside a fitting room of a private boutique in a hotel, the kind that you can only book by appointment and where all the clothes on display are already preselected for your size, and they also serve the most delicious little cakes and a refreshing array of drinks while you look for the perfect outfit, the perfect bag, the perfect everything really.
I look at myself in the mirror, and my reflection is another miracle. I think—no, actually, I know—I look so much younger now, less stressed, more relaxed.
I also know it's all because of...him, and that’s why...
When I remember how I once asked myself if I would turn back time if I could—