Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67468 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
“Come on. I’ll walk you down before I go have a talk with dumbass,” Silvy grumbled.
“Your shirt’s wrinkled,” I added as I followed behind his broad back.
“I had a stakeout all night,” he rasped. “It was long, exhausting, and uneventful. I sat in the car for a full eight hours. If my shirt’s wrinkled, that’s why.”
Silvy was all about appearances. He was the only person I knew that still ironed his clothes. Even his t-shirts.
We took the steps that led down to the outside of The Marina.
Our apartments were right above The Marina, though our entrances were on the opposite side of the front door.
Meaning, when I saw the dog and the person headed up toward our front door, I knew exactly what was about to happen.
“I’ll deal with it.” Silvy gave me a look that clearly said ‘stay put’ and headed out the clear glass front door that separated the foyer of our apartments from the outside dock.
I watched as Silvy stopped well away from the man and the dog and called them to a halt.
Silvy said something fast and sharp, pointing at me, and then did some motion, causing the man to back away with the dog.
The man look confused.
I felt bad.
However…
“No, what are you doing?” Werner pushed past me and out the door.
The man with the dog took a few more steps back and was already shaking his head.
Werner tried to call the guy inside, but Silvy had had enough.
He barked something at Werner, and I chose to use that as my escape.
Pushing out the door and going the opposite way of the commotion—I was a total coward for making Silvy handle that—I headed toward The Marina’s front door.
The Marina—that was literally its name—was my dad’s pride and joy. Something that was his and his alone from his family.
It was honestly one of my favorite places in the world.
What it wasn’t was far away from all that bullshit going on behind me.
“So you broke up with him?” Jaycee, my sister, asked.
I rolled my eyes at her attire.
She was in a bikini, with a pink drink, and standing outside literally about to head to her favorite lounge chair.
“You gonna work today, sis?” I asked her, knowing the answer before she even gave it.
“I’m gonna sit here and tan.” She shrugged. “Maybe enjoy the show.”
The show being Silvy, Werner, and the no longer there service dog.
I left her to it and got to work.
Not once thinking about Werner the rest of the day.
CHAPTER 1
I don’t always whoop, but when I do, there it is.
-Alice’s secret thoughts
ALICE
He was back.
Oh, my god.
He was back!
I licked my lips and fixed my shirt, but nothing was going to hide the fact that I’d gained weight since he’d been gone.
And he was finally back.
I doubted he even knew who I was as he pulled up on his motorcycle.
He was wearing board shorts—black and tight—and a cutoff black T-shirt.
He had a hat on his head—one of those floppy ones that covered your ears and most of your neck—and he was sporting the best beard I’d ever seen in my life.
It wasn’t long or thick like was popular these days, but nice and trim, covering the lower half of his face.
His eyes, those beautiful, melted brown sugar eyes, were scanning the horizon for the boat that was likely what he was about to pilot out of our inlet.
Cassius Ulysses Costas was the epitome of ‘holy shit, he’s hot.’
When you thought of a man and everything that you wanted him to be, Cassius was it.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, thick biceps, and had a washboard set of abs that you could bounce a roll of dimes off of.
He even had a square jawline that wasn’t in appearance since he had that magnificent beard.
Five years ago, when he went to prison for the assault of the rich dick everyone loathed, I’d never in a million years thought he’d come back here. I wouldn’t have. Mostly because that rich dick was still around, fucking up everyone’s life, making his presence known far and wide.
I hadn’t blamed Cassius for what he’d done.
When everyone—and I do mean everyone that had a boat in our small community—had gone out looking for his mom, there was one person suspiciously absent from the search party.
What was Oberon doing?
He was getting lit on his yacht, uncaring that just a scant day prior, Oberon had lost his girlfriend in the middle of the ocean.
When Oberon had first come into contact with Cassius after they’d called off the search party, Oberon had been uncaring about it.
He’d been all ‘oh, shucks. That’s a shame’ and had gone back to drinking as if he hadn’t just gotten the news that his girlfriend of months had been pronounced lost at sea.
So, Cassius, having lost the very last part of his family—and man, what a tragic life he’d had after the loss of his dad and siblings—had unsurprisingly snapped.