Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Rose turns to face me, giving her back to the room, and I know without looking that her mom is glaring holes into her back. “That’s behavior unbecoming of a hostess, Rose. You greet each guest; don’t let one person gobble up your time.”
“You’re pissing off the dragon,” I warn her.
“So what? She won’t be mad long. She’s too busy being angry with Alec.”
“Oh? And here I thought her golden boy could do no wrong.”
“That was before he put a ring on Savvy’s finger. She’s big mad about that.”
I scoff. “Seriously? Why?”
Rose rolls her eyes. “You know Mom. She wants her children to marry into a dynasty. Like wealth and connections come with blood.”
I cough out a laugh. Then a whole string of laughter spills from my lips.
“What?”
“She hasn’t figured it out. That’s priceless.” Savvy was always so insecure about her family not having any money. She never understood that for these people, the name and the clout will always means more. Charles’s mother was “new money” and always trying to prove herself, and Cheryl’s the same.
“Figured what out?”
“Savvy Downing, Peony. From the Downings.”
“The old department store? The one Grandma loved?”
“That’s the one.” I shake my head. “I’m surprised Alec didn’t tell her just so she’d let him marry the woman he loves.”
Rose folds her arms and turns to look at the couple in question. His arm is still around her, but neither looks comfortable. If I hadn’t seen her half-naked in his family room last weekend, I wouldn’t believe they were a real couple.
“Oliver, I honestly don’t think he knows.”
“No way. They’re engaged. How could he not know?”
“Yeah, well, like I said before,” she says, turning back to me, “pretty weird relationship. Back to the kiss. I don’t condone this, but I need details. Did she kiss you back? Is she breaking it off with Alec?”
She definitely kissed me back, but Rose doesn’t need that level of info. “She said it’s him.”
Rose frowns. “It’s him? That’s what she said?”
“She pushed me away, Rose.”
“Well, yeah. That’s why you were supposed to have a mature conversation with her, not confess your love and then kiss her like she isn’t wearing another man’s ring.”
I glance toward them again. Alec doesn’t have his arm around her anymore, and they both look more comfortable. “But you say Alec doesn’t even know who her parents are?”
“If he knew, why would he keep it from Mom?”
“There’s absolutely no reason.” I watch Savvy and Alec for a while longer then shake my head. “No reason at all.”
Part Twelve
EIGHT YEARS AGO
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
SAVVY
For two weeks, I’ve gotten to see a side of Oliver I once only suspected was there. A side that makes me happy and lustful and hopeful. A side that makes me anxious to get home every night—and so distracted once I’m there that I had to go back to doing my homework in the library just so I could focus. Which worked okay until a library study session evolved into dirty text exchanges that had him hunting me down in the stacks, holding his hand over my mouth so no one would hear my moans as he drove me over the edge.
Since that first night in the utility closet, we haven’t been able to keep our hands off each other, but we’ve been diligent about protection, and while I think the possibility of an unplanned pregnancy hits some deep emotional wound for him, he hasn’t opened up about it.
When I get home from my shift at The Naked Bean on Friday, I find Oliver in the bathroom, scowling at the mirror as he straightens his tie.
I give a low whistle as I saunter in. “Damn. Someone cleans up nice.”
His scowl wavers for a beat as he cuts his eyes to me then looks back to the mirror. “I hate this shit,” he mutters, but something about the look on his face as he takes himself in makes me think he hates what he sees more than the tie.
I step between him and the mirror and hoist myself up on the counter. “Where are you going?”
His face softens as he meets my eyes. “Just a family obligation I can’t get out of.”
“What family?” I frown. I sound like a heartless ass. “Your sister?”
“And brother and father and stepmother. Hell.”
“I didn’t think you talked to any of them.” And I didn’t know any of them lived close by.
He doesn’t seem to take offense to my gaffe. He lifts one hand to my face and strokes my cheek gently with his knuckles. “Family only in the strictest definition of the word. These people don’t really count.”
“But they matter enough that you’re all messed up about seeing them.” In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.
“That’s how I know they’re not real family. They fuck with my head.”
I pull him down by his tie and suck his bottom lip between my teeth. “Take me with you, then,” I whisper against his lips. “I’ll protect you from your big, bad relatives. I won’t let them fuck with you.”