Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 95(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 95(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Uh-oh. This isn’t good.
“No, Mr. C.,” she replies.
“So you remember I’m a lawyer, right?” he asks. Even I’m a little afraid of how he’s sounding right now. I can’t imagine how Sarah’s feeling.
“Yes…”
“So do you really intend to continue hiding Mandy here and face the consequences when I find out later you were lying to me?”
My heart is racing now. I can’t continue to let Sarah go through this—not after she’s been so good to me and was ready to comfort me after the day I’ve had.
I stand up and call out, “Stop!” My voice rings out loudly enough that it can be heard by Cooper while I make my way out of the kitchen and into the front of the house where he’s standing. “I’m here. It’s okay, Sarah. You can go. I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, her eyes filled with concern.
“I’m sure,” I tell her with a smile. She places a hand on my arm and then goes upstairs to her room. I wait until I hear the door shut before I turn back to Cooper. “So…you knew she was cheating on Mark because you were the one she was cheating on him with.”
“No, baby—”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, my body trembling. I can barely even look at him right now.
“Okay,” he says softly, like he knows I’m two seconds from running again. “Mandy, that’s not what was happening at all.”
“What was happening then?” I ask.
“Well, from what I gather, last week Tiffany walked in on Mark with another woman—a secretary from the office—and so to get back at him, she decided to arrange it so he would see her with another man from the office.”
“Oh, give me a break,” I scoff, on the verge of laughing.
“It’s the truth,” Cooper replies firmly.
“How would she even pull that off?” I ask. “There are so many variables…”
“Apparently—and again, I just learned all of this today—Tiffany knew Mark had been following her,” Cooper says. “So she followed us to the boutique and staged the kiss.”
A thread of belief is beginning to sew itself into my mind. God, how badly I want to believe this. But still, he could be making all this up to save his ass.
“Okay, but—”
“Look, I’ll prove it to you.” Cooper takes me by the hand, and a torrent of emotions flow through me. I want to pull away. I want to kick him in the shin. I want to pull him to me and kiss him. But I don’t do any of those things. I just let him lead me outside where I see Tiffany standing with her arms crossed, leaning against a pink Porsche.
The urge to rush her and yank every single hair out of her head comes across me, but I somehow resist.
“Tiffany, did you and I ever have an affair?” Tiffany purses her lips and slowly shakes her head. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
“Nope,” she replies.
“So why did you kiss me and act like we were having one?”
With a deep sigh, she replies, “Because I wanted to get back at my butt-sucking husband who was cheating on me.”
“And am I coercing you to say this in any way?”
Tiffany shakes her head. “Nope.”
A sense of relief sweeps over me as Cooper squeezes my hand. “Go on then,” he says. “Get outta here.”
Tiffany doesn’t need to be told twice. She hops in her ridiculously colored Porsche and takes off. Cooper turns back to me, his face filled with concern. He reaches in to brush my hair out of my face, and I even let him.
“Now do you believe me?” he asks.
I sort of nod. “I…I think so.”
“You know what we’re also going to do when we get home?” he asks.
“W-what?” I’m not trembling quite as much anymore.
“We’re going to look at all the security footage I have from the house that shows that no one came over to the house for the two weeks you were gone,” he replies. “Especially no ugly pink Porsches.” I burst out laughing as tears begin to stream from my eyes. “And you’ll see that I leave the house for the office, then come back home when work is over, and that’s my schedule. Nice and basic and boring, with no room for an affair with a woman that isn’t you.”
I’m crying as I nod. “That’s okay, Daddy,” I tell him. “I believe you. I believe you.”
His big arms sweep me into his embrace, and I throw mine around his massive chest, tracing the muscles of his back with my fingers. I don’t think I can take much more of these ups and downs from this emotional roller coaster.
He squeezes me with just the right amount of pressure and lifts me up so I can wrap my legs around him. I feel his lips against the skin of my neck, then seconds later, they meet mine, and we’re kissing. I pull back and stare into his eyes and feel a rush of joy penetrate my being. Even though we’re in front of Sarah’s house, this is home, right here in his arms and his eyes.