Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
“Yep.”
“Yes!” Jasmine jumps to her feet and starts to do a victory dance, making me laugh. She’s so animated today. I wonder if having West here puts her more at ease.
“All right.” I scoop the Kisses up. “Put these on your nightstand but none until after dinner.”
“Okay.” Jasmine takes them from me.
“Wash up for dinner too.”
“On it!” she chirps, bouncing off toward her bathroom after putting the Kisses away. I reach over and grab West’s cards.
“You little liar.” I shake my head, smiling at him. With his hand, he cups the back of my neck, pulling me toward him. He meets me halfway, taking my mouth in a kiss. I close my eyes and let myself get lost in him for a few seconds. I was so freaked out this morning, but now West has washed many of those feelings away, allowing hope to return.
"I'd lose every hand if it gave me that smile and these kisses." I press my forehead against his.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I whisper. “Everything feels okay when you’re near.”
West closes his eyes for a long moment. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” I stop him. “No more sorries. Things happened how they needed to.”
“All right,” he agrees, pressing another kiss to my lips.
“You two are always kissing,” Jasmine interrupts.
“Sorry.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Both West and I say it at the same time.
“It’s kind of sweet.” Jasmine sits down at the end of her bed. “You two seem more like a real mom and dad.” She swings her legs back and forth. Jasmine doesn’t remember her mother. I often wonder how Thomas was with her.
"That's what you want?” I shoot West a glare.
“It would be nice to be normal.” She shrugs one shoulder.
“Normal isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.” I get up and sit next to her. “West and I didn’t grow up anywhere near normal.”
“But you had each other,” Jasmine points out quickly.
“And look,” West cuts in. “You’ve got us too.”
That makes both Jasmine and me smile.
Chapter Fourteen
WEST
“What are you really doing in my home, Evers?” Thomas Ware's eyes follow me as I wander around his study. I get the sense that he’d like to plant his boot in my ass and send me across the street. Sad for him, but I spent a decade in the military. I’m immovable when I want to be.
I take a seat. “You have a problem, but you’re too busy doing Wall Street stuff to see it. Fortunately for you, I’m here to protect my girl and yours.”
A muscle in the back of his jaw twitches. “Are you going to tell me what it is or do I have to come around the desk and beat it out of you? I’m happy to do the latter.”
“Why’d you marry? From what I read, you seemed to have been disinterested in holy matrimony. No one saw you with any woman at all, and then suddenly your wedding announcement to a random social climber appeared in the paper. Some speculated that you got Roberta pregnant, but no baby ever showed up. You don’t love her, so that’s not why you tied the knot.”
“Are you an expert on love?” He hands me a glass of whiskey and returns to his place behind his desk.
I take a sip. The stuff is good. “I am now.”
He grits his teeth. “Do you think your past with Vasey gives you the right to question my personal decisions?”
“No. It’s my future with Vasey that gives me that right. I’m trying to be respectful here, Ware. We don’t need to fight. Not with our fists or our wallets, but I’ll spend every last dollar of yours and mine to secure a future with my woman.”
His jaw muscle ticks again, but after a few beats of silence, he gives way. “I did a background check on Roberta. My people interviewed her friends, family, even her parents. She’s greedy and vain, but she’s a devoted mother who puts her child first and presents no danger to her family.”
So he married her to provide a mother for Jasmine in the form of Roberta. “You miscalculated. Her loyalty only extends to Gideon. The only child she is protecting is hers, and she doesn’t consider Jasmine hers.”
“Spell it out.”
“Jasmine has been the recipient of several dead animals. All small—rats, mice, frogs. The latest was a bird whose neck was wrung. I followed Gideon the other night to a shady club where he was cutting a sex worker’s hair off. That’s what he paid to do. Not to have sex with her but to mutilate her appearance. I gave him a card to my friend’s boxing gym so that when he showed up, I’d have someone beat some fear into him, but Jasmine isn’t safe with him, and neither is Vasey.” I explain to him what happened to Vasey this morning and how Roberta planned to blackmail her. “Obviously, I won’t be allowing him into my school where he could terrorize other girls, and I won’t leave your home until you do something about him. You can fix this or I will.” I get to my feet. “Thanks for the whiskey. I can see you have decent taste in some things.”