Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Each time I ask a question that makes it seem like she’s at her parents’ house, she changes the subject and refuses to answer. So, she won’t lie about being there, but she won’t tell me where she is either.
I used to smirk each time she did that, but now, looking at this report in my hand, I’m not so sure that I should be playing around with her. On top of that, my idiot brother just loves reminding me how easy his woman was to handle compared to mine.
I’m too busy to remind him of how he’d lost his mind back then, so he just laughs and rubs it in that my woman had run away, and I didn’t know where to find her. Mom, who had settled down once, gave her an acceptable explanation and just smiled secretly because she knew my fish hadn’t jumped off the hook.
Dad, well, he’s just a lost cause. He buys into Roman’s bullshit because they’re both cut from the same cloth and has taken to calling me a disgrace to the family name. According to him, I shot myself in the foot and will spend the rest of my life alone because I let my one and only get away.
That apparently isn’t his biggest worry. The fact that I had crossed the Thorntons and those three old men seemed to worry him more than anything else. “We’re gonna have to move.” He’d yelled that at the dinner table last night after tearing into me again.
That was his new kick, playing the doddering old fool. I’d have believed that if Uncle Marcus hadn’t been in existence. As crazy as her family is, mine has them beat. But she’s on a whole other level. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
JESSICA
It was time to head back. The natives were getting restless. Mom, because she wasn’t able to fill her motherly quota these last two weeks and Julius was starting to grumble each time we talked. I think the only reason I hadn’t rushed back thus far is because I’ve been sleeping so well at night.
I don’t know what it is about this place, but I’ve decided that from now on this is going to be my home base. I haven’t been slacking off while here, though. The situation with Dale and Charlotte had pretty much been taken care of on my end, and things had progressed much better than I’d expected.
For one, Charlotte was facing serious jail time and had already been picked up by the Feds the day before. As I said, I hadn’t meant to take things this far in the beginning. Even though I’d found hints here and there of what she’d been up to, I hadn’t pushed any further because it was none of my business and in my experience, those things usually came to light sooner or later.
But that night, I’d seen the predatory look in her eyes when she looked at Julius, and it just rubbed me the wrong way. As for Dale, he got the boot long before she got taken in. Last I heard, he’d hired a team of lawyers to prove his innocence and get his job back.
I never realized just how thick he is. Losing his job for having an affair with a staff member had nothing to do with the fact that said member was a thief. He seemed to think that since there was no evidence linking him to her crimes, that should absolve him of the other.
The reason this was so satisfying was that he was up for promotion, and everyone knew it. He was the young rising star at the company, something he was very proud of. And now he’d be lucky to get a job washing dishes in the financial sector.
I was still wondering whether to reveal that it was I who had destroyed his future as I packed to return to the real world. I’d given myself a thousand excuses, but the truth is, I missed that idiot Julius. I missed his scent and the way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not looking.
I was no longer afraid, and the hurt was mostly gone. I hadn’t spent these two weeks just plotting against Dale and his side piece; in fact, most of my days were spent thinking about the past and the things he’d said in the café that day.
Everything was a lot to unpack, but the bottom line is I don’t think I can live without him. I want to see where this goes, I want to have dates with him and to wake up next to him each day, feeling the way I did when I spent the night with him.
I can’t go back to not seeing him or hearing his voice first thing on the phone, nagging me to come home. No matter where my mind goes when it comes to us, it always comes back to that fact. The fact that I can’t live without Julius Blair.