Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“You did.” Christian perched on the other side of me. “And that last sentence too.”
I knocked back the whiskey in front of me, then motioned for a refill. Christian chuckled, shaking his head. Arya and Winnie disappeared to the restroom, probably to plot my execution.
“Back to the topic. You didn’t sexually harass your wife,” Arsène murmured, then ordered a whiskey as well. “The tongue-thrusting was mutual,” he reflected. “And uncalled for. I was planning to eat today.”
The women joined us and ordered fruity schnapps and truffle fries.
“You have to go back to her.” Arya put a hand on my shoulder. “What you did today was lame for a thirteen-year-old, and disastrous for a thirty-seven-year-old.”
“She’ll get over it,” I said. Duffy didn’t give two shits about me. She was still full-fledged obsessed with the idiot who left her behind.
Just in case, I pulled out my phone to check if I had any missed calls or texts from her. I didn’t. She was probably vomiting into a trash can this very moment, brushing her teeth with hot coal and hoping she didn’t catch anything deadly.
“Why did you run off, anyway?” Christian tilted his head sideways.
“Because he likes her,” Arsène supplied.
“As a friend,” I corrected, though I wasn’t sure that was true anymore. I did like Duffy, weirdly enough. But I also wanted to fuck her. What would that be called?
Marriage, you moron.
“Sure!” Winnie said brightly. “And I only liked Arsène as a boss.”
She hated Arsène when he was her boss. In fact, she ran all the way back to Tennessee when she’d worked as an actress at his theater.
“No, I actually do only like her as a friend.” I tapered my eyes, shooting Arsène a don’t-be-a-dick glare. “You know my thoughts on monogamy.”
“What I know is you’ve never stayed in a place long enough to get attached to anything.” Arsène draped an arm over Winnie’s shoulder. “Now that’s changing, and so are you. If this is how you kiss your friends . . .” He trailed off, his gaze drifting to the woman tucked under his arm. “Stay the fuck away from my wife.”
An infinite number of drinks later, I decided to face the music.
I was about to open the door to Duffy’s building when my phone rang. It was Emmett, the world-class douchebag. Not normally my conversation partner of choice, but this was the one time I wanted to speak to him. I swiped the screen, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Emmett.” I said his name in the same tone I would the word douchebag.
“Fine. So the wedding did happen,” he huffed on the other side of the line. “I’ll give you that.”
“Hello to you too. And what do we say when we wrongly accuse our employees of faking a wedding . . . ?”
“Sorry,” he grumbled, and even though my marriage wasn’t real, the pleasure of seeing this fucker backing out of sending me to Alaska was very genuine. “How was it?” Emmett asked dispassionately. I could tell it had cost him a mental arm and a leg to call me.
“Great.” I got to our—Duffy’s—floor and stopped by her door. I didn’t want to have my attention on anything or anyone else while I faced her. “How’s life at the fishbowl?”
“Stop calling my office a fishbowl.”
“It’s not just your office.” I yawned. “It’s any office.”
“I like my fishbowl,” he maintained.
“I like my freedom,” I retorted.
He laughed. “Well, you just signed it over when you got hitched.”
“Funny,” I said dryly. “Is that why you called? To congratulate me?” I found it hard to believe.
“Actually, I called to tell you I’m still not buying your marriage, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on you. I hate to be lied to.” There was a pause. “Also, you’ll be glad to know that now that Alaska is off the table, I have a new, local assignment for you.”
“Hit me with it.”
“Abandoned prisons.”
“How many are there in the state of New York?”
“Two,” he answered. “One more in New Jersey, and one up in Connecticut.”
I tried to ignore the claustrophobia tightening around my neck. I was going to stay in New York for a while.
I cleared my throat. “Sounds good.”
“I’ll email you the details tonight,” Emmett chirped.
“You do that.”
“Oh, and Riggs? We still want to meet this wife of yours.” Then he added to clarify, “The entire Discovery family.”
I smiled big, so he could hear it. “She would love to see you too. Just give us a time and a place.”
After we finally hung up, I shoved my key into its hole. I was about to turn it when a voice stopped me.
“Hey, Riggs.”
Dammit. The one time I wanted to speak to my wife, the entire world and its uncle decided to talk to me.
The one time? Really? What about the time you sneaked in on her after she ignored you after that almost-kiss? You tiptoed your way upstairs so she wouldn’t hear you come.