Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 168980 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
“He’s doin’ a bang-up job of that.”
I feel myself start to smile. “Fuck, Banks—”
Right as I swear, they both slug me at the same time, left arm, right arm. The bet I lost. They haven’t forgotten. They haven’t forgotten me. I smile and grimace, and I can’t even wish they would forget—because I wouldn’t wish forgetting them on myself.
Banks smiles more. “I do love this gold-star hospitality from my boss. Let’s me know you care.”
I rub my arm where Sulli slugged. “I do care just as your boss.” Before I can ask, Sulli chimes in first.
“How’d it go?” she asks, concern drawing her towards him.
“Is everything good?” I wonder too. He’s not torn up or quiet, so maybe the news is good.
He lifts his shoulders. “Don’t know. They said they’d call me in a couple hours with the results.”
Sulli lets out a long breath. “Two hours. We can wait that out.”
“It’ll be nothing,” Banks agrees and then careens his head back to me. “You want to wait with us?”
What?
I don’t move.
I can’t.
Banks smacks my chest with the back of his hand. “I could be about to hear some potentially career-ending news.”
“You’re going to be fine, Banks,” I say, letting that statement out into existence. He’ll be fine. And it’s not his career I care about. It’s his health.
It’s him.
He shrugs. “Still, you can join us.”
I shouldn’t.
I really, really shouldn’t.
Feel the moment, Nine.
With a deeper breath and before I can stop myself, I exhale the words, “As your boss, I can do that.”
“As my boss,” Banks repeats with a shadowy smile. Like I’m full of crap.
I shake my head at him, trying not to smile back. “You think the MRI is going to tell us if you have a screw loose?”
“If so, we should order one for you.”
Sulli laughs, and I hear my laugh that feels ancient. Dusty. Newly uncovered.
I missed them.
Feeling it is different than thinking it. And like an idiot, I’m doing both.
Laughter leaves fast as I remember what I should be doing. You’re just his boss. She’s just a client. “Let’s head out.”
Banks clasps Sulli’s hand, and with the shortest glance backwards, I see them share a smile. I’m giving them too much hope.
This is wrong.
Then why do I keep moving?
While I lead out front, the three of us and the temp bodyguard exit the revolving glass doors. I go outside first.
Scanning the snowy Philly sidewalk, a crowd of ten or twelve has amassed, but nothing major. Nothing like New Year’s Eve. Seeing the calm just reinforces why I broke up with them.
So she could have this.
Banks leads Sulli forward and I hawk-eye the paparazzi who push closer. “Stay back!” I shout, arm outstretched.
“We parked in the deck,” Sulli says. “To the lef—” She’s cut off.
In a single instant, someone pelts a projectile too fast to catch. Banks only has time to raise his arm to block the assault. Something smashes into him and explodes—white powder mushrooms around the three of us and the temp. We’re covered. Sulli coughs as I wrap an arm over her shoulders with Banks, about to pull her to the ground in case another projectile is launched.
“CHEATER!” someone screams angrily.
Whoever just assaulted Banks—they thought he was Thatcher. The projectile wasn’t meant for Sulli. Alarm has snapped me into total focus. I can’t see the person through the white, dusty cloud.
“Bernard!” I shout at the temp, and I order him to go detain the heckler.
Banks wafts the air around our faces.
“What…what the fuck is this?” Sulli wipes the white powder out of her eyes. I check on her with a fast sweep. She’s okay.
I taste it on my lips.
Flour.
With our hair and face and shoulders dusted with baking flour, Banks and I share a brief, readied look.
“Get her out of here,” I tell him. “I’ll meet you at the penthouse.”
Sulli’s bathroom.
That humongous fudging tub. The water. Him and her.
Still caked in flour, I lean against the sink and grip the counter behind me, trying to peel my gaze off a memory. In a flash of a moment, a second, I can almost feel us in the water. Taking Sulli’s virginity against the stone of her tub, the trust and affection and emotion…
It’s right there, Nine.
“I can’t fucking believe they mixed you up with your brother,” Sulli fumes, running a damp towel over her face.
Banks soaks another washcloth in the sink. “It happens.” He’s unaffected by the blunder. “This is one of those times I’m glad I’m employed by you.” He meets my eyes, speaking to me, and a levity inflates my lungs. “Can you imagine the fuckin’ old guard after a flour-bomb?”
I start to smile and mimic Alpha bodyguards. “Back then, we had to deal with repeated flour-bombers in public locations. Like a damn ski slope!”
Banks laughs.
Sulli smiles over at me. “Was this when Jane and Moffy were babies?”