Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“You can drive.” She dangled her keys in front of me. “It’s brand new. Twin turbos!”
I snatched her key up. “You got a new car?”
“I did,” she admitted. “The last one I had was great, but we decided in the divorce that Jackson would get that, too, since there was still so much left to pay on it. I loved it, though, and decided to get the same exact kind, only the newer year model. This is actually next year’s model. I went up to the dealership on my way back home from your place a few weeks ago.” Her face blushed as her mind likely went exactly where mine went. “I was just going to look, but the owner of the dealership recognized me. Said that his daughter idolized me and wanted to run with me. I offered to do just that, and he was so thankful that he offered to sell me the new car for his cost.”
“Nice,” I said. “What dealership?”
She told me which one as we rounded the corner, and I got my first look at her car.
I whistled through my teeth. “Shit. Look at those red brake calipers. And those tires.”
The whole thing looked like a sleek missile.
“It drives like a dream,” she admitted.
I unlocked her car and circled it.
“Very nice,” I said as I took in the brand-new Audi R8.
“My dad also helped pay for it,” she admitted. “He thought it would be a funny ‘fuck you’ to Jackson when he saw that I was still driving the car he refused to let me take in the divorce. I tried to fight him, but he said that it was his lot in life, and he got to do whatever he wanted because he was the dad.”
“That’s true, I can confirm.” I chuckled.
A buzz came to life against my leg, and I reached into my pocket for my phone to see if it was anything important.
When I opened the message from Yates, I frowned and studied it for a long moment.
Yates:
Nice, boss. Really nice.
Yates had taken a still photo of me kissing Sutton in the middle of the hallway and had sent it to me.
Though I liked the photo, I didn’t like that he’d sent it to me.
I also didn’t like that he’d taken time out of his day to go back through the video feed to find it.
Then again, maybe he was trying to spot how she’d gotten in, or tried to spot how the cameras hadn’t picked her up.
Consoling myself in the knowledge that he was just doing his job, I let the weird comment and the photo go and got into my truck.
“Where to?” I asked.
She turned those stunning brown eyes to me and admitted, “I’m not really sure about anything here. Everywhere that I have considered trying seems really busy, and the parking situation really freaks me out.”
Dallas was like that. Especially when you were downtown.
“They have a really good Mexican food place around the corner,” I said as I started her car up and listened to it purr. “Great chips and queso. Decent hot sauce. They also have a taco salad that they rave about, not that I’ve ever had it before. It is a little bit more popular around lunchtime, but I have an in with the bakery next door to it.”
“Is it the same bakery that we went to a few weeks ago?” she asked innocently.
I put her car into drive and let off the gas, pulling back onto the little back road that would take me to the main drag in front of the school.
“One and the same,” I teased, quickly checking both left and right before pulling out. “We can stop in for a cookie when we’re done.”
She looked torn. “If I get the salad and eat a minimal amount of chips, I can eat that cookie and not totally ruin my eating day.”
“Eat the food, honey,” I said as I headed toward the restaurant. “There’s always tomorrow to eat good.”
Thirteen
Stay the fuck out of my bubble.
—Sutton to Jackson
SUTTON
He kept glancing into his side mirror, and I started to get a little worried.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I looked into my own side mirror.
There was a black SUV following us, but they weren’t doing anything scary.
“SUV behind us has been following us for the last ten minutes,” he said as he put on his blinker.
I watched the SUV do the same in my side mirror.
“What do you think they want?”
He sighed, long and loud. “Unfortunately, I forgot to mention a few things.”
I whipped my head toward him. “What?”
“I have two elderly stalkers,” he admitted resignedly. “They follow me everywhere I go, take pictures of me. Have their private investigator follow me. Stake out Lottie’s daycare.”
“Whoa,” I said. “Why?”
“Lottie’s mom, Laney, was estranged from her parents when she passed away. She was estranged because her parents were overbearing assholes who wanted to control her every move. They hated her friends—Audric and Creole. They hated Creole’s mom and dad. They hated Audric’s dad. They hated even more that Laney was using the money that was given to her out of her inheritance from her grandmother to pay off debts for both Creole and Audric. Then, they hated even more that the money that they wanted to be theirs went to their firstborn granddaughter. Now, they want to have custody of Lottie so they can control her inheritance and likely brainwash her to think like them. But they’ve tried and failed to get custody of her multiple times now. But they’re still trying to find something that’ll prove I’m a bad father. Getting sued is a little overdue, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they tried that again today.”