Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
My throat burns as I imagine Dahlia listening to that. She’s so tough, so sweet—so undeserving of being tied up in that shit. But you’d never know it. She always has a smile on her pretty face.
I nibble at my bottom lip, wondering if there’s anything I can do for her. Is she okay? Should I ask her about it or leave it alone? I have no damn clue.
Even if the world doesn’t know Dallo is her father, she does.
And I do.
And it fucking bothers me.
My jaw flexes as I consider all the ways that relationship could hurt her.
And all the ways I’d destroy the person responsible.
Chapter Five
Dahlia
“This is not great for my hair.” I adjust my sunglasses and hit the gas. “But screw it. YOLO, baby.”
The wind blows through my window and out the other side of the car, using the cab as a makeshift tunnel. The dice hanging off my rearview mirror dance in the breeze as dust particles twinkle around me.
The morning is bright. Traffic is light. My coffee is strong. And it’s Tuesday, so I could sleep in an extra two hours because Ford Landry is kind like that. We get five personal hours a week to do with what we see fit—and we get paid for them. I use two on Tuesdays for sleep.
I crank up the radio's volume and perform the best concert my commuter buddies in the cars around me have ever seen. Tone on pitch … ish. Hair in proper nineties wildness and more passion than the song probably warrants. But just before we’re to the part where I get to rap about waterfalls, my phone rings through the speakers.
“Every time,” I mutter, returning the volume to a respectable level. I answer the call as the windows slide back to their starting position. “Hello?”
“Dahlia?”
I smile at the warmth in his tone. “Why do you sound surprised? Didn’t you call me?”
“You sound out of breath,” Troy says.
“I just got done running ten miles. Set my new personal record.”
He pauses. “Seriously?”
“Hell, no.” I laugh. “But I was performing an excellent rendition of a nineties classic on my way to the office. Why? What’s up?”
“I’ve been texting you for the last ten minutes.”
I pull my sunglasses on top of my head. “First of all, I’m under no obligation to text you back within a ten-minute or sixty-minute or whatever-minute span. Second of all, George Strait was the first act of today’s concert, and you don’t interrupt the king, sir. Not for anyone.”
He mumbles something I can’t hear. That’s probably for the best.
“Do you actually need something?” I ask. “Or did you text me a sweet good morning, and I didn’t respond, so you got butt hurt?”
“Right.” I can practically hear him rolling his eyes. “I’m sitting at the shop. They’re telling me it will be this afternoon when they finish, and they don’t have any loaner cars available.”
“Sucks to be you.”
“Doll.”
I shift in my seat, happy he can’t see the way I swoon. “Troy.”
“Fine. I’ll call Becca and have her pick me up.”
“You will do no such thing,” I say before I can catch myself. I clear my throat. “She’s busy today.”
“How busy can she possibly be? Theo is in a meeting with Ford. I’m sure she can spare a few minutes to help me out.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“If you insist.”
The amusement in his tone—wonderfully thick and rich—would be foreplay if it wasn’t at my expense. But it’s my fault. I played right into his hands and handed him a victory.
I click the button on my steering wheel and end the call.
“I wasn’t prepared for this,” I say, groaning as I hit the brake at a red light. My vanity mirror is clean, thank God, and I use it to pull my hair into a messy bun.
It takes three lights until I’m properly powdered, lipstick’d, and put together. I’m straightening my shirt when I roll up to the curb outside the auto shop. Light bounces off the glass door as it opens.
Oh fuck.
My mouth hangs wide open.
If he didn’t wake up this morning, look in the mirror, and wonder how he should dress to drive me absolutely out of my freaking mind, I’d be shocked.
Dark denim hugs his thick thighs. A tight black shirt skims his barrel chest, and a blazer hangs open in the front. He moves gracefully—confidently—with so much swagger that a man and a woman stop independently and stare.
Pull yourself together, Dahlia.
He reaches for the door when my phone rings through the car. I jump, hitting the button to answer it accidentally.
Troy climbs in, looking at me over the rim of his sunglasses before removing them altogether.
The slate gray of his eyes and the spicy, almost tobacco-y scent of his cologne team up to ruin me.
“Dahlia? Are you there?” a voice rings from my speakers.