Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
When I got inside, I headed toward where Karen was already ordering her beer at the bar, refusing to look around at anything. Or anyone.
I arrived just in time to hear Karen finish saying, “…and lots of extra salt on the rims.”
I rolled my eyes.
Looking at Karen, you wouldn’t think she was crazy. She looked all tightly put together all the time. Even after spending all day at the beach.
“I ordered us the biggest one.” Karen grinned. “And that dude over there paid for them.”
I’d just turned my head to look when a button-down-covered chest entered my line of sight.
I stepped back, instantly requiring more room than the guy was willing to afford me.
“Hello,” the man smiled at me, all perfect white teeth and long eyelashes covering his eyes. “Can I buy you another drink?”
So either he hadn’t seen Karen order the original one that was paid for, or he didn’t care.
Either way, I didn’t want anything to do with him.
“No, thank you,” I tried pleasantly.
“Come on,” he urged. “What’s another drink?”
Then he moved forward, getting so close to me that I had to push between the bar and the anchored stools directly next to the bar.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized, giving him the best ‘I’m so sorry and sincere’ expression and lifting the hem of my jeans up to show off my ankle. “But I’m on house arrest. I only get an hour out a week, and I won’t be able to fit you in for a while.”
Damn, that lie sounded convincing. Even the men that had been with the dude looked slightly startled.
“Oh.” He looked worried. “I didn’t realize.”
I smirked. “Well, now you do.”
“So why were you in prison?” he asked.
There was a husky laugh that had me turning to find Cassius at the bar, empty mug in hand, asking the pretty woman bartender for a refill.
I clenched my teeth and tried to ignore him.
But then he started flirting with the girls seated at the bar, and I got irritated enough to answer the question.
“For harming my ex-boyfriend,” I lied.
“Harming?” he asked worriedly. “How did you harm him?”
“Well,” I said. “When he got mouthy and decided he didn’t like that I made more money than him, I chose to do what I wanted anyway. He disagreed with me doing that and tried to hold me captive in our seven-thousand-square-foot home. When I told him that wasn’t enough space, he locked me in our bedroom. And then I got a pair of needle nose pliers out and tried to pull off one of his fingernails while he slept. Which he didn’t appreciate. So he called the police.”
By this point, the guy was looking at me with confused eyes.
“Hey,” Karen said, having heard the story I’d just told. “Didn’t that just happen last week?”
As in, your brother and I worked that call yesterday. He told you about it?
He sure had. My brother told me about everything. Even the murder.
Apparently, it’d been a crime of passion. A girl that looked a lot like me—eerily so—had been down by the rocks and had been beaten and left for dead. An early morning dog walker had found her half in, half out of the water.
The chuckling by the man I was trying my hardest to avoid had me forming tightened fists with my hands, and trying not to open them and wrap them around his neck.
It wouldn’t do me any good, but the visual of me strangling the life out of him was at least satisfying.
I ignored him and went to the bar beside him and waited for my drink.
“That’s a Fitbit,” Cassius said to me in a low murmur. “How does he not know that? Hell, I was in jail for years and still know what a Fitbit looks like.”
My drink was placed in front of me, and I had to drown my mouth in a hefty swallow so I didn’t say anything mean. Of course, that only caused me to choke.
“You were both in jail?”
Cassius, laughing now, left with his now-refilled beer. The dude who was completely oblivious stood there looking oddly at me.
I took my drink and moved to the end of the bar with Karen, who was now in deep conversation with the original man that’d purchased our drinks.
“This is Silvain’s sister, Alice.”
The man looked at me like I was a leper.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” I said, “I have a twin sister named Jaycee. I’m not her.”
His lips curved up at that. “Thank God.”
“And Silvy probably talks about her a lot because we like complaining about her to anyone that’ll listen,” I said.
“Silvy?”
I snickered. Oh, I’d bet I’d be hearing about my use of his nickname soon.
“Silvy.” I nodded. “Silvain is our grandfather to us.”
He nodded, his eyes taking me in.
He had to be a cop if some sort. It felt like he was looking into my soul.