Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 67144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Troy’s brows pull together.
Focus. “Yes. Sorry. Hi. Who is this?”
“Hey. It’s Theo.”
Troy sits back and latches his seat belt. His lips press into a tight line.
“Hey, Theo,” I say with a touch too much cheer and pull away from the curb. “What’s going on?”
“I just got out of a meeting with Ford. It looks like I’ll be working from the office for the next six weeks.”
Troy bristles at my side.
“Oh really?” I ask, smiling. I like Theo and all, but I really couldn’t care less where he works. What I do care about, and thoroughly enjoy, is Troy’s annoyance with this piece of information. I win this one, buddy. “Why?”
“Our contract ran out in New York and they didn’t renew. Ford asked if I wanted to work with Lincoln and his family when they move to Tennessee. Apparently, Lincoln is set to manage the Arrows baseball team.”
“Cool! Maybe he can get us tickets.”
“That’s what I said.” Theo laughs. “But they don’t leave for a couple of months, and there isn’t a short contract for me in the meantime.”
Troy mumbles something under his breath that I can’t make out.
“Sign up for snacks with Becca,” I say, hitting my turn signal and pulling onto the main road leading to the office.
“Snacks?” He laughs. “What for?”
“Um, the office. We’re snack-y. You have to pull your own weight around there.”
“What is this? Kindergarten?”
I laugh, too. “I’ll have you know that when we implemented a snack protocol in the office, our efficiency increased tenfold.”
“How does it work?”
“Every Wednesday, someone brings in a snack. There’s a sign-up form and list of allergies in Becca’s office. Here’s a tip. Only bring in homemade stuff if you can actually cook or bake. If not, prepackaged works just fine.”
“Sounds like you had a bad experience at some point,” he says.
“More than one.”
Troy sits up, his arm brushing against mine. “Hey, Theo, something came up. She’ll have to discuss snacks with you later.”
“What?” he asks just before Troy ends the call on my dash.
“Hey,” I say, looking at him over my shoulder. “What the heck was that?”
He stares straight ahead.
“That was rude, Troy.”
“Oh, give me a break,” he says. “He was wasting your time.”
I snort. “No, he wasn’t. We were having a friendly chat about work. And, even if he was wasting my time, it would be just that. My time.”
“You aren’t that dense, Dahlia.”
“Excuse me?”
“He was flirting with you.”
“He wasn’t flirting with me.”
Troy’s head tilts to the side, nonplussed.
“Whatever,” I say, sitting taller. Troy cares that Theo was flirting with me? Huh. “It was still rude.”
“Well then, please forgive me.”
I shake my head. “If you could say it like you meant it even a little, I might.”
He shrugs, clearly unbothered.
“You know, I was having a damn good day until you got in my car,” I say, slowing as a light changes to yellow.
“I was having a pretty decent day until I got in here, too.”
I look at him, fully intending to glare. But when our eyes connect, my intentions fall to the wayside. Our gazes lock, and an entire conversation takes place within a handful of seconds—and neither of us utters a word.
My stomach flutters as my body heat rises. I suck in a hasty breath, fighting not to lose myself in his eyes.
“You can go,” he says, his words soft.
A horn blares at me from behind, waking me from my momentary haze.
I face the road and hit the gas, exhaling slowly.
“Sorry for ruining your day.” He’s probably fighting a grin, but I refuse to look. “I mean the apology this time.”
“I’ll accept it then.”
Out of my peripheral vision, I catch his fingers flexing against his jeans.
“What do you have going on today?” I ask.
“Working on a security plan for a gala Ford’s parents are throwing in a few months. They have the same party every year. So it’s more about updating protocol than starting from scratch.” He flexes his fingers again. “And I need to talk to him about a few things.”
“Did you decide what you’re doing next?”
“Nope.”
I hum. “I’m still leaning toward vacation.”
“You and Travis. He tried to talk me into it last night.”
“I knew I liked your brother.”
“I do, too. Most of the time.”
We exchange a quick grin.
“He came over last night,” Troy says, hesitating. “Asked about you, actually.”
“Why?”
He takes a long, deep breath. “We watched the news, and they did a piece on your father.”
Oh. My shoulders stiffen. “I see. That wasn’t where I thought you were going with that, but okay.”
“Where’d you think I was going with it?”
I don’t know where I thought he was going, but the turn to my father’s legal issues gave me whiplash.
“Doll, if you don’t want to talk about this, we won’t.”
“It’s … fine,” I say, forcing a swallow down my throat. “It’s just awkward going from not having a father at all to having one. And then not being able to talk about him openly. Then with the few people you can talk to about it, things like money laundering and fraud come up. Kinda hard to make those adjustments on the fly, you know?”