Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“I thought I was calling the last sane person in the family. Nice talking to you, Dev.”
“Aww, c’mon, little brother. Honestly, this may not be such a bad thing. It’s not like you would’ve gotten around to it on your own, and I like Sydney. It might even do you good.”
I’ve always thought of myself as a man of principles, even when I was acting like an asshole. And there were a few unequivocal truths I embraced with every cell in my body. One: I loved my country. Two: meatless burgers were a spawn of the devil. Three: the environment needed to be protected and preserved. And four: marriage to Sydney Evans would never ever “do me good.”
“Good luck with your rat infestation, Dev. Love you.”
Sydney
A text came in at 5 a.m. the next morning. I picked up the phone off the nightstand, glanced at the screen.
Scott: Vegas today. Be ready by 4.
I texted him back without having to think twice. It was now or never. Intuitively, I knew that if I stalled, it would never happen.
Me: I’ll be ready.
By the time the Blackstone jet landed in Vegas that evening I was a bundle of nerves and I didn’t understand why. Hadn’t I been the one who had insisted we go through with it? Now that the plan was put into action, however, I was feeling a strong urge to run and fast. My female intuition screamed that the price for this hoax was going to far outweigh the benefits and that’s what worried me most. In the past, it had seldom failed me. It also didn’t help that Scott’s brooding had hit an all-time high.
The short plane ride had been eerily silent as both of us worked on our respective laptops. As soon as the plane had finished climbing, he pulled it out and started typing. Floored, I couldn’t stop watching him, hiding my holy shit face behind my computer screen. Witnessing Scott do actual work was like catching sight of a unicorn among a herd of wild horses––as impossible as it was amazing.
“You didn’t invite anyone,” I said, finally breaking the silence. I couldn’t take anymore and coming from someone who’d learned to control all her emotional reactions to avoid getting beaten that was saying a lot. “Don’t you think it’ll look shady that we didn’t have any family and friends with us?”
His eyes remained directed on the screen of his MacBook Air when he drawled in as dry a delivery as I’d ever heard, “No. I don’t. We’re so hot for each other we couldn’t wait.”
Small talk had never been my thing. I’d never excelled at idle chitchat. Generally, men loved talking about themselves and I encouraged it. In business, I stuck to my repertoire: asking about the wife, the children, and the latest vacation. I even dabbled in sports talk but not because I liked it, purely as a negotiating ploy. Problem was, I couldn’t do any of that with Scott. We weren’t friends, or acquaintances. We weren’t even business partners. In his mind, we were adversaries and he treated me as such, with barely contained hostility.
Sighing, I stared out the small oval window over his shoulder. “Who’s taking care of the dogs?”
“Drake,” he’d said without further explanation.
Shut down once again, I didn’t utter another word and went back to checking out the specs on a building in Kuala Lumpur Frank was considering purchasing. I could do silence. I could do silence better than anyone.
* * *
“Scott Blackstone. I have a reservation,” he said to the receptionist, a pretty brunette with a coy smile. Glancing up from her screen, her doe eyes widened. So did the smile, and it was directed at Scott with the intensity of a thousand suns.
He’d turned more than a few heads the moment we’d walked into the Wynn. Dressed in a perfectly tailored navy blue suit that hugged the contours of his new muscles and expensive shades on his face, I could see why. He looked like the millionaire he was, and women dug that. It just wasn’t my thing. I had no doubt that Scott had shot out of his mother’s womb stunning the doctors and nurses with his Instagram-model-level masculine beauty. But to me, he was ten times more appealing with his rugged tan and scruffy face and body like a back road than when he’d been getting his nails buffed.
“Yes, the ambassador’s suite. Welcome back, Mr. Blackstone,” the receptionist replied.
Of course they knew him here. I kept my disapproval to myself, however. It was none of my business what Scott did with his time––whether we were married or not.
The receptionist slid the keycards across the marble counter, and in the process not-so-accidentally bumped fingers with him. The harsh look he gave the woman didn’t escape me. It did, however, seem disproportionate for such an insignificant lapse in professionalism. Then again, I’d given up trying to make sense of him. He was just as unpredictable as his father. Which was why when he handed me one of the keys and took off without a word across the casino, I simply followed. His demeanor screamed get away from me. So I did, falling back.