Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
It was the man who gently asked, as his own expression went about as confused as Zac’s, “About what?”
I wasn’t sure what it said about me that I felt zero sympathy for her. None.
It was then that Zac blinked and then asked, “Wait a minute. You look familiar. Did we—” He stopped and glanced at the man he had to have known, looking sheepish all of a sudden. “—go out? A long time ago?”
I was going to slap him. On the ass so I wouldn’t ruin his photogenic face. He didn’t remember her.
I wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse.
Maybe he needed more information. JESSICA BRUNETTESTUDENT DAL. At least she’d been a student back when they’d dated.
I wanted to kick him right in the asshole.
The woman, Jessica, made a noise in her throat as she lifted her eyes slowly to make contact with Zac, a surprised expression sweeping over her features. I was 99 percent sure there was anger in her eyeballs as she looked at him.
Then, at that exact moment, I might have felt for her a little bit. But just a teeny bit. Because yikes.
Only for a second. Until she opened her mouth again, the anger morphing into incredulousness in the blink of an eye. “For three months, Zachary Travis,” she told him coldly.
She’d busted out his last name. Yeah, she was definitely pissed and insulted.
The other man blinked in surprise, but whether it was at her tone or the fact he didn’t know they had “dated,” I had no clue. I was so mad that I couldn’t finish what I had wanted to do, damn it.
“Still dumber than a box of rocks, huh?” she told him in a mean voice that had the other man stilling. Zac, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes like he was trying to remember… and failing. I could tell by the expression on his face; one eye got more squinty than the other.
But I hadn’t forgotten.
And she wasn’t about to say shit like that to him.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” I snapped, annoyed.
She rolled her eyes, the fear and the body shakes magically gone. “You. Still defending him. Still following him around like a little puppy, huh?”
Where the hell had the scared bitch gone? I wondered, offended and mad all over again. I was nobody’s puppy. I was a German Shepherd, maybe a Belgian Malinois; not the smallest or the biggest but strong, proud and loyal.
Fuck her. Asshole.
“So?” I asked her because it was the first thing that popped into my head. I almost said at least he remembers me, but it didn’t come to me fast enough.
“Jessica,” the man stated, distracting us. “What are you talking about? What did you do?” He paused. “And don’t lie. Don’t even think about.”
And there she was, back to being scared. Or maybe it wasn’t so much scared as… caught. Resigned, and terrified about it, that’s what it was.
And I must have not been the only person to pick up on it because even Zac said, “I remember you now.” And in the blink of an eye, his head lifted, his expression changed into one so serious it was scary, and he asked, “What are you talkin’ about?”
The man said her name all slow and tense.
She gulped again, and a deep feeling of dread filled my stomach. A warning. A premonition.
Tears filled her eyes. Tears I didn’t really believe from how fast they appeared and how effortlessly she batted her eyelashes. “I’m sorry, okay?” she whispered in a tiny voice that made me want to smack her too. Not in the asshole.
And since I didn’t trust these guys to not boo-hoo-woo-woo over her pretty little blue eyes getting teary, I jumped in. “What are you sorry for? What you said to me?”
Nope. Not that. “For what I did,” she answered, still using that tiny voice I wanted to stomp on. “For the phone numbers….”
The phone numbers?
I thought it was Zac who actually said those same words out loud in a question.
Jessica nodded all timidly and at the floor again.
What phone numbers?
It was the man who asked with a bewildered face, “What phone numbers? What did you do? Tell the truth.”
The fact he kept asking what she had done wouldn’t settle in my brain for hours. What kind of person were you? I would wonder later, that someone would assume you had done something. But I wouldn’t worry about that for hours. Until later. Until after all this had come to the surface.
She started to cry, just a tear, then two, and she sniffed. “The phone numbers.”
What the hell was she talking about?
“I… I’m sorry. I was j-j-jealous, Enzo. Do you understand? I was jealous, and I… I was a lot younger, and I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I did it.” She broke off, sniffling and sniffling and sniffling.