Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
And still, I don’t think a single person could walk in this room and tell.
Jane’s dad stands like he owns the world. Expensive slacks and navy-blue button-down, a Cartier watch on his wrist that probably costs more than my uncle’s row house. He has billion-dollar energy that screams I’m better than you.
Arrogant.
Poised. All the way down to the look in his eyes and posture. How he leans back against the cabinets, hands casually careened on the counter.
In the past, in a professional setting—conversing over security matters—Connor has been approachable and easy-going. But I understand he’s no less deadly than the woman he married. The only difference is that Rose shows you her dagger, and he keeps his behind his back.
Silence mounts.
I’m in foreign territory, but it wouldn’t be the first time. I check on Jane. On instinct. I glance through the kitchen archway and see her on the pink loveseat, talking quietly to her mom. Jane catches my eyes and gives me an encouraging nod.
“Do you want to offer me a drink?” Connor asks, pulling my attention. “Water, lemonade, bourbon? You live here now, so I’m to assume you can act as a host.”
Fuck all things to hell. I nod towards the fridge. “Would you like a drink?” I ask. “I can get whatever you want.”
“Not right now. But I appreciate the offer, even delayed and obviously coerced.”
He’s not going to make this easy.
That’s fine. I can shovel myself out of the grave I’m in, and I add, because I think it’s an important detail, “I’ve only been living here for less than an hour, sir.”
Connor doesn’t even pause. “You’ve been sleeping with her for much longer than an hour.”
Holy fuck.
My features harden to stone.
I knew he’d run me over the fucking coals, but I didn’t think he’d do the job so bluntly and without hesitation. “Yeah,” I say, not denying that fact. “It’s been consensual.”
“I know,” Connor says. “You’d already be in jail if it weren’t.” He says the words casually, like this is everyday conversation. Somehow, his calm tone sounds more threatening than if he were screaming in my face.
“And I would want the same thing,” I say and then shake my head. “That’s not true, actually.”
Connor tilts his head, but his stare is blank. “You wouldn’t want someone who forced themselves on Jane to be put in jail?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” My voice is deep and assured. “I’d want them dead.” I’d also like to be the one to carry out the murder, but I don’t add that fact. I’m not sure Connor would appreciate how easily I could kill someone, even if it’d be for Jane.
Connor sizes me up for a second. “Coffee?” He’s the one who moves to the pot and starts pouring liquid in a pastel pink mug.
He hands me a cup.
“I can get yours,” I tell him, but he’s already filling up another one.
My grandma is at home clucking her tongue in disapproval. I should be feeding a guest, not making them do all the fucking work.
I’m an assertive man, but something about Connor is slowing my reflexes.
He raises his cup to his mouth. “Jane is many things, but I would never call her irrational nor spontaneous. So when she told us that her boyfriend of—” he gives me a look “—how long have you two been together?”
My hand tightens on my mug. “I can’t calculate an exact number.”
He arches a single brow. “You can’t?”
I hold his gaze.
In my head, Jane and I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that our fake relationship was real. It was gradual, and the feelings inside the fake-dating op were never fabricated. But Jane was slow to let me in, and she’d say that we were “pals who fuck” for most of that time.
The technical answer is two days ago.
The answer I feel is more ambiguous, and both are wrong ones to tell her dad.
Make a decision, Thatcher. Steam billows from my cup and heats my face.
“It’s felt like a long time,” I say.
“Feelings tend to blur rationality.” He rests an elbow back. “Since Jane seems to care a great deal for you, let’s say that you two officially became a couple when you started sleeping together. That would be when?” He takes a sip from his coffee.
“Over a month ago.”
“Four months?”
“No.”
“Three?”
I shake my head. “Less than that. Just…over a month”
He inspects his coffee, then me. “Let’s also consider that you were her bodyguard and around my daughter for longer periods throughout a day. That increases the value of time you’ve spent together. So we’ll round up ‘over one month’ to three months.” He sets his mug on the counter behind him. “So when Jane told us her boyfriend of three months was moving in with her, I thought it was fast. What do you think?”
It’s not slow.