Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Gannon side-eyes me but turns to Dad. “You give Renn hell every day about being an embarrassment to our family. And look at you. It’s you. I’m disgusted to be your son.”
Mom steps toward our father.
“Now, listen, Rory. Before you get all pissed off and jealous—”
Crack!
Her hand connects with the side of his face. He reaches up like he’s going to hit her back, but Ripley is quick to end that.
“How could you do this, Daddy?” Bianca asks.
Dad glares up at Ripley, then at Gannon. “Where is your loyalty, boys?”
“With Renn,” Ripley says, switching his attention to me. “He always has my back.”
I nod his way.
“What do you want to do, Mom?” Jason asks, giving me a look to be patient.
She pauses. “Let your father go, Ripley.”
Ripley releases his arm.
“You little shit,” Dad sneers. “You all get the hell out of my house.”
“Excuse me.” Mom laughs. “I’m not finished.” She looks over her shoulder. “Gannon, Jason, please keep your brother from going to jail. I’d love to see your father writhing in pain, but he’s done enough damage for one evening.”
“No. I’m not leaving here until he pays for what he did,” I say, clenching my fists.
Mom turns to me. “You need to take care of your wife. Let me take out the trash.” She looks at Bianca. “Will you help your father, please?”
“Do what?” she asks.
Mom turns toward the door. “Help him pack his shit.”
“Oh, Rory,” Dad says, blowing her off. “Stop it.”
Mom stops in the doorway and spins around. She takes in her family. Then she nods.
“I want you out of my house in twenty minutes. Take your car and clothes. The rest is mine.”
“Rory—”
“You will not disrespect my children. You will not talk to another woman like you spoke to Blakely, and you will not threaten anyone and expect me to sit back quietly. Did you forget who I am, Reid?”
He trembles with anger.
She smirks. “You came into this marriage with nothing. You’ll leave with nothing. I’ve let you slide by with your bullshit too long. Tonight, you crossed a line you won’t return from.”
“Where are you going?” he asks, as if he has the right to know. Bastard.
“I have a lot of calls to make.” She points at me. “Go home. I know you sent Tate, but …”
Blakely’s face flashes through my mind.
The tears rushing down her cheeks.
Her swollen wrist.
The pure destruction in her beautiful eyes.
“Make sure he leaves,” I say to Gannon. “Keep him away from Mom.”
“He won’t get near her. Don’t worry about that.”
“This isn’t over,” I say, looking at my father. “Mark my words.”
With that, I run to my car.
Blakely
“Yeah, Troy,” Foxx says softly on the other side of the door. “I need a medic to meet us at the airport to look at her hand. Pretty sure it’s broken.”
I glance down. I’m pretty sure it’s broken, too.
The side of my hand down to my wrist is swollen. The skin is tight and hot, and the pain is intense. When we got back to Renn's, Foxx gave me a pain reliever, but it hasn’t kicked in yet.
Foxx helped me throw my clothes and toiletries into my suitcase. I made him take the llama, which irritated him. Many things irritate him, I’ve learned. And he tried to talk me out of leaving, but I refused to listen. That also went over well.
I can’t think clearly. I know my thoughts are jumbled, and I’m terrified I’ll say or do something I’ll regret later. I waffle back and forth between wanting to puke, needing Renn, and being swamped with embarrassment. How will I face his family?
“You will never fit in here. You are not a Brewer. You will never be a Brewer.”
Out of everything Reid spewed at me, that bothers me the most.
My eyes cloud with unshed tears.
Renn is a good man—a nice man. The kind of man I’ve been looking for all along. But maybe there’s some truth to what his father said. Maybe our worlds are too different for me to fit into his.
Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell me about his contract.
Maybe that’s why he’s been acting so differently today.
Maybe he realized I’m not worth the hassle. I’m not worth the fight.
“He might be weak—deluded from fucking you—but he has Brewer blood in his veins.”
Maybe he got swept up in the sex and novelty … and remembered this isn’t real. And, if he did, my heart will shatter beyond recognition.
“If either of us start to develop real feelings for each other … Then we walk away immediately. No questions asked.”
I look at myself in the mirror. “There’s a reason you made that rule. Trust yourself, Blakely.”
I take a final look around his bathroom and his bedroom. Then I step into the hall.
Foxx looks at me with his brows pulled together. Tate stands next to him.