Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 804(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160782 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 804(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
He smiles broadly. “Try it, see what happens to you.” He takes a drink of his shake. “And you won’t be here tonight, you will be at your mother’s.”
I can’t help it and my face mirrors his stupid smile. “Stop it.” I shake my head.
“You stop it. I don’t want you here alone because I don’t want anything to happen to you while I am at work.”
I frown. “Josh, I have been here on my own for eight months since you left. Nothing is going to happen to me. Max takes care of me and if I get too scared, he sleeps in the spare room.”
He folds his arms in front of him as he stares at me. “Really?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Really, and if you are going to make me have a bodyguard it is Max or nothing, the choice is yours.”
“No, I think I am going to swap Max with Ben,” he says in his best matter of fact voice.
I narrow my eyes. “Don’t you dare. I am not hanging around with Ben. No way in hell.”
“Well, do as you’re told,” he snaps. He then walks into the bathroom and runs the shower.
I sit still at my kitchen counter and look at my eggs on toast as my blood starts to boil. All I want to do is yell you are not my boyfriend so shut up. But I need to keep calm and play the game, I want to win him back at all costs…this is going to be a damn tough assignment.
Adrian
The night before
I walk up the street towards the restaurant I am meeting Nicholas in. How did I let him ambush me like this? My security is trailing behind me and I am painfully aware of their presence. I’m proud to be gay but when I have people watching me on a date, or a brush off in this case, I feel uncomfortable. I guess everyone who has security trailing them everywhere feels like this. Joshua hates it probably more than me. Apparently at his dinner date with Tash the other night she cried at the table and he was mortified that they had security witnessing the whole nightmare. I hope they catch this maniac soon. We could all do with some much-needed privacy. I blow out a breath in a nervous gesture. Nicholas keeps telling me there was something there between us on the last date and he wasn’t wrong… there was too much there. Too much sexual energy, too much intelligence and humor, too much yearning for intimacy and I know it can only end badly. He lives in France for heaven’s sake. I’m nipping it in the bud before it turns sour, as relationships always do for me. What I don’t like though is the way he has called me out on it. He obviously doesn’t get the brush off very often. Today when he rang me, he was furious and told me if I don’t go out to dinner with him alone tonight, he will come into the office and ambush me in front of whoever is there and he doesn’t give a fuck who hears what he has to say, those exact words.
I get out my phone to check the number of the street the
restaurant is on. We are going to O’Shea’s, an oyster bar and restaurant. It’s just up here. I stop out the front and peer in through the window and turn to my two security guards who are four or five meters behind me. After the graffiti in our office back home a month ago, with the words Joshua Stanton and Adrian Murphy Next written in blood on our office wall, Ben has been security crazy. Joshua and I are being guarded to a ridiculous degree. The police don’t know whose blood the writing was in, but it’s messed with all of our heads. If you are crazy enough to use your own blood to graffiti some- one’s office it’s a nightmare. If it wasn’t his blood…that’s worse.
“Just wait out here, please. I will be fine,” I ask the bodyguards. Their eyes flick to each other and they nod. “Ok, no worries.” I open the large heavy doors and enter the restaurant tentatively as I look around. Nicholas stands up next to a table at the rear of the restaurant and waves. I smile and make my way over to him.
God, what am I doing here? I nervously walk over. He is dressed in a grey suit, white shirt and grey tie, and his tall stature dominates the space around him. His longish dark hair hangs just above his collar and has a curl to it and he is wearing a long five o’clock shadow. His piercing dark eyes penetrate mine. He brings the term Greek god into a new stratosphere. Fuck!