Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 133(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 89(@300wpm)
“Go.” He barks, but nods my way and my nipples pebble under the light blue Oxford I paired with khaki pants and white Reeboks. It’s horrible and offensive to the enhanced and fashionable folk of LA, but I can’t help it. I have things I have to do.
Things I have to wear.
Say.
Think.
Things no one knows but Cade. The repetitive and obsessive things he noticed within weeks of living under his roof. Things he knew caused me angst. The therapists and life coaches and yogis he brought into my life to help, did just that.
They helped.
But, there are things I’ve yet to release and my need to dress like a prissy nun in a haughty prep school uniform is one of them. White Reeboks I polish nightly. The light blue oxfords and khaki slacks I iron for hours, trying to get just right. Cade orders them for me custom made now. Without any tags.
He notices everything.
Awkward when you are surrounded by Hollywood elites day in and day out.
I wish I could wear something that would show Cade I’m not just a little girl anymore. Something sparkly, tight, low cut, sexy. But, that just makes me wicked. Horrible. He’s the only father I’ve ever known and imagining his lips on mine is just wrong.
So why can’t I stop thinking about it?
I’ve got it so bad for Cade Jamison but who doesn’t? I’ve watched how the gorgeous women of this industry lean into him. Whisper into his ear. Brush against him, licking their filler-filled lips and beckoning him with a flutter of their lash extensions and willowy, runway model bodies.
Do you know how hard it is to find size twelve clothes in LA? Hard. But thank goodness Cade lets me order whatever I want online.
But, as much as he gives me everything, every day my heart breaks a little more knowing it’s out of obligation. When we are in the same room, it’s as though he wants to be as far from me as possible. When I walk in, he counters, stepping back. We are repelling magnets and I hold my breath every day waiting for him to tell me it’s time for me to move out.
Move on.
Because, I’ve had the feeling lately, he’s done just that. He’s been more distant, more late nights out, more trips away. Sure, it could be all business. Besides the agency, he owns a software development company in Palo Alto. Another branch of the agency is in Manhattan, as well as a sprinkling of other ventures that have pushed his net worth into the billions.
But, it’s the way he’s looked at me the last few months that tells me something has changed. He’s cared for me like a father, albeit a brooding, dark force of nature sort of father. But I’m sure he’s found someone else. I see it in his blue eyes. The way he opens his mouth as though he has something important to tell me, only to spin and leave me standing waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Waiting for him to discover my secret.
“Go do your jobs,” he finishes as the rest of the team pull out their phones and file out of the glass room, already texting and calling and being oh so LA.
He tosses me that new sort of annoyed, confused look and twitches his index finger my way. I try not to walk on my tip toes as is my nature, something I’ve done since I was little. I learned from one of the doctors Cade hired to help me, it is a characteristic of someone who has ‘neurodivergent tendencies’ as they say.
Davis is the only one besides me that stays. He’s been Cade’s best friend for more than a decade. From what my mom told me, they met as starving up-and-coming actors. Sharing a barren apartment on the wrong side of Melrose and taking commercial and extra gigs while bouncing at bars and hoping for their big break.
“You want me to have the limo take you home?” he asks, that low timbre of his voice shaking me down to my marrow as thoughts of rubbing out this frustration between my legs against him makes me dizzy.
I shake my head on a sharp breath. “No. I want to stay.”
He blinks, dark lashes surrounding the lightest of narrowing blue eyes under a jutting, tight brow. I shift my weight back and forth, twisting the end of the black ribbon that’s tied in a bow around the collar of my shirt, and focus on his Adam’s apple and the traces of ink showing on the sides of his neck.
“Stay close to me then.” He grumbles, then nods toward Davis. “Or him. Or our bodyguards.” He snaps his tongue over his front teeth, then finishes with a piercing glare that hits me right in my soaking underwear. “We clear?”