Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 116760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116760 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 584(@200wpm)___ 467(@250wpm)___ 389(@300wpm)
Her heart leaped as she saw one of them.
The asshole.
“What . . . what is this?” she asked.
“Sit down, darling.” He patted the sofa next to him and feeling shocked, she sat. “Ericc is miserable.”
“What?” she asked, confused what Ericc had to do with anything.
“He’s miserable. Working a dead-end job, all of his money goes to child support and to his mother, who he lives with in a single-wide trailer. And who, by all reports, is an awful, nasty woman. Frankly, jail or death would be a relief for him.”
“How do you know all this?” she asked.
“Because I looked into him. Because I wanted to make him pay for what he did to you. But it seems life is already punishing him and I don’t want to make things better for him. So, then I went looking for the asshole. Because I can make him pay.”
Shoot. She’d hoped he’d forgotten. She shook her head. “No. No, Corbin. Just leave it alone.”
He grasped hold of her chin, holding her head still. “I can’t, Bebe. He has to pay. What he did to you deserves punishment. And it will stop him from doing this to anyone else.”
“What . . . what will you do? You won’t kill him, right?”
“Do you care if I do?” he asked calmly.
“Yes!”
“Why?” he asked, his face strangely cold.
“Because you might get caught! You might go to jail. I can’t be without you!” She swung her arms around his neck and he held her against him.
“You’re worried about me?” Now, his voice was soft.
Gosh. Men had a lot of mood swings. It was hard to keep up sometimes.
“Yes, of course I am. I love you.”
“You don’t care what happens to him?” he asked.
She leaned back. “Why would I? I hate him.”
“Then which one is he?” He gestured at the three images. “I narrowed it down to these professors. Which one, Bebe?”
Maybe she should refuse to tell him. But he wasn’t wrong. The asshole did deserve to be punished. It had taken her a long time to work out that she wasn’t to blame. That she hadn’t done anything wrong.
It was all on him.
So, with a shaking finger, she pointed at the photo in the middle.
“Good girl, baby.” He grasped hold of her chin again, this time to kiss her.
“What will you do?”
“Probably best you don’t know. But let’s just say, he’s about to lose his job, his home, and perhaps his freedom. A guy like that? The loss of his power will be enough to make him crumble.”
She slumped against him. “Just don’t get caught.”
“I won’t.” He rubbed her back soothingly.
“I still feel so dumb for falling for his lies.”
“Hey, I don’t want to hear you call yourself dumb,” he said sternly. “That will get your butt reddened.”
He lifted her onto his lap so she faced him. He ran a finger down her nose and then along her lips. She nipped the finger with her teeth and he grinned. Then, his face grew sober.
“I haven’t told you about Lindsay yet, have I?”
“Lindsay?” she asked.
Who was she?
“I told you I rarely go out on jobs, but I had to go on one a while ago because everyone was ill.”
Yeah, she did remember that.
“Well, I was guarding this movie star, Lindsay. She was having some security issues. She’d woken up to a guy standing in her room and understandably freaked out.”
“Wait, Lindsay Pierson?” she asked.
“Yep. That’s her.”
“So, you were her bodyguard for a while?”
“Yeah. The only thing is . . . she’s a bit unstable. While I was guarding her, she kept coming on to me. She’d touch me inappropriately, make rude remarks, and then everything crashed down when I woke up to her creeping into my bedroom.”
Holy. Crap.
“When I told her to get out, she absolutely lost it. Trashed the room, and tried to hit me. She actually got me with a vase. Had a gash on my head when Lennox ran in to help me.”
“What . . . what happened?”
He shook his head. “I thought it was my fault for a while. That I led her on somehow.”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said fiercely.
“Thanks for the support, darling. It turns out that she was on drugs, which were making her hear things and imagine things that weren’t there. She agreed to go to rehab if I didn’t press charges.”
“That was generous of you,” she muttered. Bebe wasn’t sure she felt so generous.
“I think she’s only recently come out. My point is that you can’t blame yourself for other people’s actions. That’s on them. Not you.”
She sighed. “You’re so wise. How did you get smart?”
“It’s the glasses.” He grinned. “They make me smarter.”
Bebe giggled. “And cuter.”
“Cuter? Cuter! I think I want to be handsome. More masculine. Definitely more dominant.”
“Nah. Cuter.”
“Why, you little brat!” He started tickling her, placing her on the floor and straddling her hips as he tickled her sides.