Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Her fingers twisted in the lapels of my dress shirt. “What am I going to do?”
“Run away with me.” I had no clue what dumb-ass, Romeo-Montague, ultra-delirious thought possessed me to suggest that, but as I said it, I realized I meant it. “We could go to the end of the world.”
It existed. Sagres Point in Portugal. Seb once told me he wanted to sail past it … right before he blasted through a world rowing record and decided he was too good for the world and needed to conquer the universe instead.
Briar Rose arched a brow, giving me a be-for-real look. In the background, Sebastian snored through the entire thing. The fact that Philomena and Cooper hadn’t heard him could be considered the only remaining proof of God’s existence after such a brutal day.
“Sure. We can run away. Because endless pranks and weirdly timed kisses will keep us fed.” She tried to laugh, playing it cool as if my palm didn’t boast teeth marks deeper than the Earth’s core. “You heard what my parents said. They’re sending me to an all-girls Swiss school and moving to Argentina. They ignore me half the time and are downright cruel to me the other half, but they’ve never abandoned me before. I don’t want to be alone.” She choked out, “I’m scared.”
“You’ll fucking thrive at that prep school, Briar Rose.” I latched onto her upper arms, unsure what inspired me to spew such bullshit. I’d never spent a day in a boarding school, not even a sleepaway camp. “We are going to talk on the phone every day and continue writing to each other. I’m going to be at your beck and call. Summer will come before you even know it. And at eighteen, you’ll be free from those assholes. Okay?”
She nodded, her throat bobbing with a swallow. Not good enough. I needed to hear her say it.
“Okay?” I repeated.
“Okay.”
She must’ve been scared shitless. Hell, I was scared. Of the responsibilities. Of her future. Of the possibility that I might fail to protect her and we’d both hate me for it. But I’d be damned if I didn’t help my Cuddlebug.
“I am always going to be here for you.” I tipped up her chin, my eyes boring into hers. “Not just for the summers, Cuddlebug. If you need me to transfer schools and come live here in Switzerland, I’ll do it. I’ll do anything for you. There’s no mountain too high, no ocean too deep, no planet too far for me to reach you. This is my oath to you. You will always have me. You will never, ever lose me.”
Instead of answering me with her words, she answered me with her body. Smushed my cheeks and pulled me into a kiss. This time, it was different. Virginal, and hesitant, and beautiful. So damn beautiful.
Her lips skimmed mine, and we both traced the edges of each other’s mouths, quivering, like gravity might fail us at any moment. And in that kiss, she sealed my fate.
I could never love another.
Briar Rose was it for me.
Chapter Five
Oliver
Present.
“Hey, can you be my fake date next week?” Franklin Townsend slid into the passenger seat of my Ferrari Purosangue, shimmying her mini skirt down her thighs. “There’s a house party on the beach that I really want to go to, but it’s in the Hamptons and I’d rather not get hit on every five seconds.”
She adjusted her scalloped triangle top until it covered just enough to avoid another arrest. One – I didn’t know why she took a stab at modesty. Her outfit consisted of less fabric than a napkin. Party girl was her entire personality. And two – I had no clue what the Hamptons had to do with the frequency at which people hit on her, but I didn’t care enough to ask.
I revved the engine loud enough to piss off Romeo, whose home Frankie currently squatted in. “Tempting, but I’d rather eat my own spleen.”
“Why not?” She popped her pink gum, unperturbed. “I’m a hot commodity.”
“You know I don’t show up in public with the same woman more than once. People will get the wrong idea and think I’m considering monogamy, Franklin. I’m a fuckboy, not a con artist.”
“Technically, you’re a fuck-man.” Frankie giggled. “The whole bachelor schtick gets old once you hit your thirties.”
I peeled out of our neighborhood as she wrestled free a compact mirror from her Birkin – a gift from her sister, courtesy of a revenge shopping spree. “It’s not that I’m old … it’s that you’re barely born.”
She swiped on an extra coat of lip gloss. “I thought men like young women?”
“My rule of thumb is, I’m only willing to potty train someone who came out of my nuts.” What I didn’t add was that I’d never be a father, so that wasn’t a problem.