Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
He was nervous.
That was okay, because I was nervous, too.
I was nervous that shit was going to hit the fan, and I was going to do or say something that might get me into trouble. Or worse, Laric into trouble.
See, there was something about me that happened when I got mad.
A switch is flipped, and all of a sudden, my control slips and I say and do things that might be better off not being said or done.
There was this one time that I’d ordered a cake for my dad, and when I’d gotten there, they’d misspelled ‘dad.’
Who the hell misspells ‘dad?’
Obviously, the dumb chick behind the cake counter, that was who.
So when I asked her to redo it, she’d thrown a wall-eyed fit and pretty much refused to do it at first.
It was only when her manager had come over, was listening to me act like a lunatic because the woman had then told me that I just didn’t know how to speak English, or she would’ve written it correctly, that the cake was remade.
Needless to say, after her getting fired for fucking up my cake, I realized I might’ve carried it a little too far.
But she’d insulted my intelligence and my dad, two things that were very important to me.
And today, I was walking into a den of vipers that possibly had a kidnapped little girl in their midst. Not to mention there was a woman who’d hurt Laric really badly, even if Laric wasn’t going to admit it to anyone.
But I’d seen his face when he’d told me that story. Told me that his mother had kept him away from his father. I’d seen how his face had gone wistful for a few short seconds. How he’d thought his life may have been a lot different than it’d ended up.
“Try your best,” he murmured.
“Yes, try your best,” Lynn said, proving that, like my own dad, he had superhero hearing, too.
I snapped my mouth shut and made big eyes at Laric who, might I add, was laughing silently.
The big toot.
“Please remember your manners, ladies,” Lynn said.
“Why are you warning us, and not them?” Beckham asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue.
“Because your men have control.” Lynn paused. “Something in which you all lack. When it comes to your men or children, you don’t seem to practice your patience.”
He had a point…
“What are you doing here?” a man asked at the same time a woman said, “Oh, my God.”
I looked up to find an older blonde housewife type standing in the middle of the driveway, her hand on her perfectly straight pencil skirted hip, hair out to there, and so much makeup that you couldn’t tell whether she was normal looking or not.
The man beside her was obviously the butler, but you could tell that him and the woman had boned a time or two at the way that he’d moved himself protectively in front of her.
“My son would like to talk to his mother,” Lynn lied through his teeth.
At first, I was a bit shocked that Lynn would’ve led with that, but then the man looked from the housewife to Laric, and did a double-take, spurting out a few unintelligible words.
The woman’s face blanched. “I have no kids.”
She kept bobbing her head between Laric and Lynn, obviously having seen the resemblance like the rest of us.
And she was losing color the longer she stood there.
“Obviously, you do,” Lynn said. “And I’ve been trying to talk him out of it for quite some time. Today, obviously I could no longer talk him out of it anymore. You’ve aged well, darling…”
The woman threw her hand up. “Don’t you dare call me that awful nickname, Lynnwood. I go by my middle name now. Rebecca Sharp. You may call me Mrs. Sharp.”
I wanted to ask so many questions, to demand Lynn explain why he would throw Laric under the bus, but then the door was opening and an older gentleman was stepping out.
“Rebecca, dear. Why don’t you allow them to come in. We can all discuss this inside, where the neighbors won’t hear,” the older, crusty fellow that obviously was Rebecca’s sugar daddy, ordered.
Rebecca huffed, and we all trudged inside.
“He’s not throwing me under the bus,” Laric said. “He’s getting us inside.”
“Oh.” I got a little less angry at the father of my man.
That was acceptable, I guess.
Getting us inside would help us find this child that was missing, if that missing child happened to be in this home.
I was just worried about Laric’s state of mind at this point because he was now holding my hand so tightly that I felt my bones creaking.
I didn’t ask him to stop, though.
Instead, I leaned into him to show him my silent support.
“Would any of you like a refreshment?” the butler asked.