Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 344(@200wpm)___ 275(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“You don’t have an office,” I pointed out.
“No, but I have a shitter.” He laughed. “But really, I can boss her around and make it look like she’s working. We’ll make it work.”
I blew out a sigh of relief.
The thought of her staying here by herself really was unsettling.
“Thanks. I’ll see you in an hour,” I replied, then hung up.
She looked at me with a scowl on her pretty face.
“He said he’ll put you to work. Or at least he’d make it look like he was putting you to work,” I told her.
Her foot tapped.
Tap, tap, tap.
I set the bag I’d packed down on the counter, then bypassed her and her brooding for her bedroom. Once there, I packed her a small bag. Shoved a pillow into it, then brought it back out to the counter to put next to mine.
“I’ll drop you off at the marina first,” I said, carefully telling her what we would do. “Then I’ll go pick up my client. It’ll be an hour and a half, tops. We have to go over a few things, make sure that we’re on the same page, that kind of thing. Then, when I’m done kissing ass and selling my business, I’ll come back to the marina. My client can meet us there and we can take off.”
She still didn’t say anything.
So I chose to make her a sandwich.
She ate that sandwich without ever losing eye contact.
I barely contained the urge to smile.
As she was doing that, and hopefully getting less hangry, I fed the birds and got them ready for the night and half the day by themselves—we would be on an overnight fishing trip.
Once done with that, I locked everything up tight, checked all the new doors and locks we’d had installed, then caught up both bags.
“Come on,” I urged. “We can take my bike.”
“How will we carry the bags?” she asked almost reluctantly.
I hid my grin. Barely.
“I got a bungee cord. I’ll strap it to the back once you’re on,” I explained.
She mumbled something under her breath, then headed outside.
I went with her, arming the house on my app and locking it up tight before I strapped our bags down and headed off.
Everything was going great until it wasn’t.
The first sign that shit was going to go bad was the hook incident.
The moron who we were wining and dining for his contract—a huge million-dollar contract where we’d be on retainer for any time they needed a guard for one of their billionaire clients—was fishing, about seven hours into our trip when he “thought he got a bite.”
Only, that “bite” was actually a wave, and he yanked the hook out of the water just barely below the surface.
That hook embedded itself into Greer’s stomach.
Greer screeched in surprise, and like the dumbass he was, the guy tried to yank it toward him.
On instinct, I caught the line in my hand, wrapping the line twice around my palm, and held it steady despite the guy’s moronic move.
“Just set it down nicely in the corner,” I growled at him.
He did, his eyes wide as he stared at my fuming gaze.
He licked his lips as he hurriedly started to apologize. “I’m so sorry.”
I felt my eyelid start to twitch, then looked down at the hook embedded in the meat of Greer’s abdomen.
The rock of a wave had her stumbling, and it was only Aodhan’s steadying hand that kept her on her feet.
“You’re gonna have to push it all the way through,” Aodhan looked upset at the thought of hurting her, too. “It sucks, but…there are no other choices. And we’re currently six hours from shore.”
Why had I agreed to go on this particular chartered trip?
Oh, yeah. That’s right. My client had wanted to go.
No, he’d insisted on going. And since I’d wanted to control all the variables I could, I’d recommended a friend’s chartered fishing service. Aodhan’s.
Aodhan had recently started to take over for a friend of his, and slowly but surely, he was taking on more and more responsibilities to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if he owned the company by the end of the year.
“Y’all ready?”
I looked at my friend and bared my teeth.
He held up his hands in surrender.
“Shut up,” I grumbled. “I’m getting there.”
I wasn’t getting there at fucking all.
I was frozen solid and staring at the hook through her skin.
Greer sighed and took a seat on the bait box in the middle of the boat. Then pulled out her phone and acted like she wasn’t affected in the least. We all knew that she was, but still.
I was standing on the deck attempting to gather courage while she was typing away on her phone, looking for all the world as if a massive hook wasn’t buried past the barb in her belly fat.
“I can hear your teeth grinding over the sound of the motor,” Greer said. “Just push it through. I can take it.”