Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
I despised him.
Not just because he hit on me, but because he was a revolting individual who said monstrous things, did heinous deeds, hurt shocking amounts of people, and got away with it because he was rich and white and male.
It did not surprise me in the slightest that he was behind Core Point silencing those women.
In fact, knowing he was in on it, the aggression of those endeavors came even more clear.
I did not know Jamie well, but what I knew of him, I liked. And although Judge was understandably perturbed with his fiancée, he seemed a good guy too. I would not want them to feel any pain through this.
But if AJ was one of the many bad actors who was brought low when the Winston/Core Point situations saw the light of day, I would buy an expensive bottle of champagne and toast the fuck out of it.
“I’m not close with my father, Mika.”
That was Jamie.
I looked down to see him sprawled at an angle in one of Tom’s armchairs that sat opposite the couch Chloe and I were no longer sitting on. One of Jamie’s legs was crossed over the other, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he owned the house in which he sat.
Now that was attractive.
It was fixed, natural, part of his personality to be at one with his surroundings and confident in them.
His father would probably have pissed in the corners before he took his seat, then when you protested, he told you to like it, or he’d rub your nose in it.
“In fact, I’m very close to impoverishing him,” Jamie went on.
I sat with a plop.
“Whoa,” I said once I was down.
“This…” he paused, “information isn’t another nail in his casket. It’s a stake through his heart.” He held my gaze. “And if I can manage to do it without harm to the women involved, I will drive it home.”
Whoa wasn’t the word for it.
Hot damn was.
Remind me not to get on Jamie Oakley’s bad side.
Or Corey Szabo’s, even if the man was dead.
“Are you all like that show Yellowstone, but without the cattle?” I asked after a show I’d never watched, but Nora waxed poetic about it at length.
She watched every episode the instant it aired.
And then she watched it again.
After that, she called me and cackled about it.
“I get to be Beth Dutton,” Chloe called.
Tom let out a very loud, very long, very beleaguered fatherly breath, then leaned back against one of the chairs that sat in front of his desk, crossed his arms on his chest, and assumed a pose of defeat, staring down at his tennis shoes.
I understood why.
Beth Dutton was Nora’s favorite character.
Enough said.
“I’m veritably starved,” Chloe proclaimed. “Are you starved, Mika?”
“Um—” I didn’t quite begin.
“Of course you are. Dad always has a full larder. Let’s let these boys struggle with weighty things, and we’ll go make something delicious.”
She took my hand and started dragging me around the coffee table.
Tom lifted his head and caught my eyes as I went.
Okay? I mouthed.
He nodded.
I bit my lip.
Chloe pulled me from the room.
A lot had happened in there. I was a touch worried that Chloe called the character she did, considering Nora’s devotion, and her father’s reaction.
Mostly, though, I was ridiculously elated that Tom had broken up with Paloma.
I shouldn’t be.
It really had nothing to do with me.
Tom and I were just friends.
But…
I totally was.
CHAPTER 11
THE BLEEDING
Mika
The bed in my room was a mattress set on a platform that was in an alcove that had a large, arched opening and step to get to it.
It had a ceiling fan for cooling hot nights and white noise for helping me sleep, and it didn’t need nightstands. I could put my books and drinks and pots and bottles on the platform beside the mattress.
I loved the simplicity of that area crafted of white adobe. So much, my sheets, shams and bedspread were all white, as were the shades of the two sconces on the wall at the head of the bed that offered light for reading.
I couldn’t speak for the woman, never met her, but knowing her affinity for black and white, I had a feeling Yoko Ono would love it.
In the present, however, with jacket on, purse strap still over my shoulder, I stepped up to the platform and face planted on that bed.
Face still in the bedspread, I felt the mattress move when one body joined me, then again when the other one did.
“Is she broken?” Cadence asked.
“No, she’s working perfectly fine,” Nora answered.
At Nora’s answer, I rolled to my back, glared at the ceiling and announced, “I totally blew it.”
“You did nothing of the sort,” Nora replied.
I didn’t move an inch, just shifted my eyes to look at her leaning into a hand and looming over me as I retorted, “I spent all night flirting with Jamie Oakley.”