Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
I glance back down at the message with no new text to follow. I’d have expected to get one after that call. Another threat for sure. But it didn’t come. Is my ex afraid of Gabe? Could this go away that easily? No. No, it feels too easy. It feels like a problem waiting to erupt, but right now, I need to just help my mother get through this night. The animals need to be settled, but in the back of my mind, a new fear erupts. Gabe opens the car door and eyes me. “I’ll drive.” He casts a look at the driver. “We’re done for the night.”
“Oh. You have a car here?”
“I do,” he says, holding up a BMW key and then offering me his hand.
A few minutes later, we’re settled into a fancy black sporty BMW with Gabe looking quite sexy behind the wheel. “How is Dexter?”
“Happy with his chew bone. I need to stock up on those things.” He starts the engine. “Mike’s Burgers, here we come.”
I rotate to face him. “Gabe—”
His hand is immediately at the back of my neck, his lips on my lips, his tongue licking against mine before he says, “Whatever you’re about to say, we’ll handle it.” He strokes my cheek. “I promise. Let’s just get your mom through tonight.”
“What if relocating the animals somehow sets up a takeover of the property? What if I missed something in the contract?”
He pulls back and looks at me. “How carefully did you read the contract?”
“I made them revise it three times.”
“Then does relocating the animals revert the property to your ex?”
“No. Not unless I missed something. I normally trust myself, but now—this just feels too set-up.”
“It was set-up,” he confirms. “We already know that, but that doesn’t mean there’s a contractual reason.” His hand settles on my leg. “It’s proven that if you aren’t occupying the property, then you’re more likely to give up the fight to keep it. At the risk of sounding like an ass, when this is just business, I’ve used it myself.”
“You have?”
“I have and I told you, my father’s a prick. He’ll do anything to win, which is one of the main reasons we pushed him out of the firm. I promise you, this was his doing.”
“You think your father set-up the flooding of the shelter?”
“Yes,” he says, “I do.”
“He’s that bad?”
“Yes, he is, but I know how to fight my father. You’re not going to let the shelter become a ghost town. The day after tomorrow, we’ll have a clean-up crew there and we’ll make damn sure we get at least some of the animals back in their places within seventy-two hours.”
“Gabe, that’s big money. I have to wait on the insurance and—”
He leans in and kisses me. “It’s almost the end of the year. Grant me the tax write-off. I need it.”
My hand settles on the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “You’re impossible.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“You’re generous to the extreme and I appreciate it—but I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“I volunteered my help and for a good cause.”
“And here we are. Burger time,” Gabe says again, with a smile. “You’re going to love these burgers like a fat kid loves cake.”
I laugh. “That’s a very politically incorrect joke.”
He wiggles his eyebrows and sets us in motion. “That’s me. Politically incorrect.”
“Yes, you are,” I agree, and once we’re on the road, “Bend you over without a finger of Vaseline. Really?”
“Did you want me to be gentler with him?” he asks, his tone serious as he opens the door for me.
“No,” I say, laughing again. “No. I don’t want you to be gentler with him but you crack me up.”
We laugh and joke for the next five minutes until we’re at the burger joint where we are both eager to get inside, walking hand in hand, with hurried steps. Once inside, we claim a table with open seating and a waitress eyes Gabe as she approaches us with a greeting and request for our order. “Two of my usual.” He glances at me. “Cheeseburger and fries. That works, right?”
“Yes. It does. Well done.”
“Well, then my usual works perfectly,” he concludes, his gaze warm with this realization, as if our liking the same burger the same way turns him on while he is what turns me on. The way he looks at me. The way he talks to me. The way he protects me. And the way he makes me laugh. “Let me adjust my pants,” I say, snorting while repeating his earlier statement. “Do you say that kind of thing in all negotiations?”
“Shit does tend to come out of my mouth. It works with Reid, though. He’s a hard-ass that just drives nails in people while I take them off guard with the unexpected. We’re a good team.”