Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 706(@200wpm)___ 565(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Bruce holds up a hand, timid and unsure.
“Please don’t feel insulted, Chris. Your mother’s just concerned for you. She talks about you every day. I never served like you did, of course, but I’ve known plenty of men who did. I understand how dangerous it can be, and how that constant unease gets into your head. The pay is also unsatisfactory for everything they put you through. I understand you’re with one of the premier security outfits on the West Coast now, but are you sure that’s worth catching a bullet?”
He swallows.
My eyes knife through him, knowing she put him up to this.
“No need to answer now. Don’t worry,” he continues nervously. “We’re not asking you to make any big life-altering decisions tonight. I just hope you’ll think about it, and so does your mother.”
How the hell does this worm manage a multibillion-dollar company without a spine?
He can’t even look me in the eye for more than three seconds, but I guess looking like I’m about to send his head on a vacation from his body might have something to do with it.
“Done thinking, Bruce. I didn’t come here to get berated and bitched at. I’m a grown man, and if you knew anything about me, you’d know I did most of the growing up alone.” I inhale slowly. “You’re trying to be nice. Don’t bother. The last thing I need is a Johnny-come-lately father to back up the bullshit I’ve heard my whole life.”
He winces.
I almost feel bad when I finish. “If you don’t like my choices, tough shit. I’m not suffering to keep anybody in my life. Any of you.”
I stand up and look at Delia. She’s sucking at her lip, paralyzed with sympathy shining in her eyes.
Or is it just sadness from imagining my shitshow of a life?
Fuck.
Pity is the last thing I need from the hot beach girl who would’ve been mine all night in another reality where Ma never tripped into wearing this guy’s ring.
I sigh as I stand up, way past done with this circus.
It’s not too late to hit the bar—if I don’t just head home and jerk off three times under an arctic shower.
“Chris, wait! That’s not what we’re saying and you know it.” The calm, controlled poise in my mother’s voice cracks. Her hand comes down, slapping the table. “So, you’re doing this again? You never fucking listen, do you?”
“Evie, it’s okay. Let him go,” Bruce urges, laying a hand on her shoulder.
She swats him off like a flea-ridden dog.
“No! Not okay. Sooner or later, I swear to God he’ll wind up just like his father—too hooked on adrenaline to know what’s good for him. Until it’s too late...” With a messy sob, she buries her face in sugar daddy’s chest before she peeks back at me, her face red with fury.
“I’m out of here,” I bite off.
“Go then! And don’t come crying to us when you come home a vegetable, Christopher. I tried to help you. I tried—after everything you did for me—to show you that I do care. But you just shut me down. You want to cling to your stupid grudges. Why is it so hard for you to just...just open up and let someone care?”
Grudges?
Like she doesn’t know she’s the queen bitch of them.
My hand burns, begging for violence I’d never actually allow outside a mission.
I fight down the urge to rip my glass off the table and hurl it over their heads, annihilating it on the mantle of that fancy-ass fireplace in the corner.
But I’m not a maniac.
I’m also not giving her what she wants.
Ma would love a psycho outburst.
She’d love for me to validate her woe-is-me crap, to act out like I’m still a frustrated, scared kid begging her to pull her drunken ass over before she drives us off a winding cliff on an Oregon highway.
If I hadn’t wrenched the wheel and steered us into a ratty motel parking lot that night, I’m certain neither of us would be here to fight about this shit years later.
Before I storm off, I nod at Delia. “I don’t know what any of you think of me, nor do I care. If this whole thing was a setup to win me over—try harder. Or better yet, don’t. I’ll never fit in with this rich, fucked up family, and I’m done pretending I belong.”
Her slender throat moves like it hurts to swallow.
There’s pain in those honey-brown eyes.
Is she feeling the same torture? Imagining how our night could have been completely different?
I don’t stop to ponder.
Mom screeches after me, but I don’t turn back once I’m moving.
No, I don’t want to believe last night was some weird conspiracy using Delia to soften me up. But I can’t put anything past Evie, master manipulator, especially when her mask slips off.
And the rich prick she married?