Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56169 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 187(@300wpm)
Despite all the guilting, my grandma is the best person I know. She’s a great lady in all aspects of the word, and she more than raised me because my mom wasn’t exactly capable of doing it all the time. I mean, my mom tried. I love both of them—my mom, even with her faults, and my grandma for sticking it out and never giving up on either of us. I feel kind of sorry for disappointing her. Again. It really has been a trend, and she has every right to the anger and hurt she’s feeling.
“It is what I need. I do want to do this. Really.” I do want to make her proud of me, as corny as that sounds. “You know if it were something I’d done, I’d own it. I’ve always done that.”
“Ha!” Granny scoffs. “That you have. Ever since you were a kid—or should I say, a brat—and liked to run around breaking things and cutting the dresses I was designing.”
Ugh. The ruined dress. Granny always brings that up. And I mean always. It happened when I was six, and still, her heart is in tatters about it. I don’t think she’ll ever get over it. I just got too happy with a pair of scissors, okay? I put a few small cuts in a dress on a dress form in Granny’s house when she was babysitting me one night, and I also cut about a foot off my hair. My mom also never forgave my grandma for my ruined lovely locks that she’d been growing out since I was born. It was a bad scene all around.
“If you’re serious about this, you fix your own mess this time,” Granny says, though it’s with more patience. Like she actually might believe me.
I’ve never cried wolf. I have always owned the messes I’ve made—mess, life experience, mistake…kind of everything.
“One day, they’ll just get tired of me.”
Granny scoffs at that, and I can imagine her eyebrows shooting to her pink hairline. Yes, her hair is currently pink, and yes, she’s also sixty-five years old. “The women or the tabloids?”
“Both.”
“The tabloids will get tired of you when you’re settled down with someone, committed and in a sappy romantic relationship with your soul claimed and devoted. You’ll be doting, smitten, bitten, whatever. All of it. That’s the only way they’d get tired of you.”
“Are you…are you suggesting I make things right by paying someone to be my fake girlfriend?” The line goes dead silent, and for a second, I’m worried that this time, the early grave thing worked. “Granny?”
“I’m still here,” she barks. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say. Money can buy a lot of things, but it can’t buy love. We both know that.”
She’s right. Unfortunately, we both do. My mom too.
The hot tub bubbles in front of my face, and I don’t know why I’m still standing in front of it, breathing in the warm fumes. “It’s not a terrible idea,” I say, putting it out there again. “I could find her and make her agree to make it look like we know each other. Like we knew each other before that kiss but kept it quiet. That I came here, not just for the company, but for her.”
I expect my grandma to keep up with the protests, but there’s a strange sound on the other end, like a frog croaking thing. “It might work.”
I’m stunned. It’s early, and I guess my muscle control isn’t the best first thing in the morning because my clenched fingers release. My phone goes into a freefall, hits the edge of the hot tub, bounces once, then flops and descends into the watery depths.
I stare at the phone, my mouth hanging open. The crazy part is that I can hear Granny yelling at me from under the water for a few seconds before it dies, and everything goes silent.
Shit shizzle. That’s one of Granny’s favorite expressions. She’s not exactly a token grandma. And this seriously is my last chance before she does something drastic like takes out a pair of scissors and does some snipping.
Not on me, but on her will. With my name. You know, the good ol’ cutting me out deal. She’s never actually threatened to do it, but I can sense it coming. Because who in our multi-billion dollar company would want at its head a playboy interested only in partying. It does not matter how hard I’ve worked or will work. If the media continues to paint me in this limelight, then I’m done. No way will I be accepted as the next head.
Anyhow, I know one thing. Well, I know a lot of things, but for the moment, just one. I need to fix this, and by fix it, I mean find the red-headed goddess who brazenly locked lips with me earlier today and convince her to act like she’s my secret love, my only love, the love of my life. My one and only. The sweet to my bitter and the syrup to my maple. The jam to my peanut butter? The dipping sauce to my fish sticks?