Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 669(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
She sat in bed for the longest time, listening to the sounds of people moving in the room next to her.
Why on earth had she believed them? She had nothing. Not a damn thing to her name. She’d given them the only thing of worth she owned—her body and her caring and affection. Why should they stay around? They were gorgeous, and she was a normal woman. Not even normal. God, she was a woman who was wanted for the murder of her husband. She should thank her lucky stars they hadn’t stuck around because she was almost certain those men would be damn nosy. Their sister, too.
Had Olivia known all they wanted from her was a good time?
She was an excellent wingman. She knew exactly how to push someone into her brothers’ arms. If Olivia hadn’t been there, making her wait, she would have gone up to the second floor and read a book and hoped there was a job for her at the end of the night. But no, Olivia had tempted her with margaritas and nachos and friendship.
She wondered if Olivia was laughing her ass off this morning at the young woman who so obviously didn’t belong anywhere at all.
Nicole pushed off the bed, dragging the sheet around her. Even alone it felt weird to be naked. It hadn’t the night before, but she’d been fooling herself.
She took a shower, forcing herself to move. It didn’t matter two men she barely knew were done with her. Nope. She’d had what she wanted, too.
That was how she needed to look at things. She’d gotten what she wanted and hadn’t even had to deal with two needy guys.
It was perfect.
Except how was she going to feel the next time Josh came into the café? He was a regular. How was she going to feel when he came in with the kind of woman he could care about? The kind he didn’t leave far before morning came.
Was their whole sharing thing a big joke? They’d made it out like they were wounded souls looking for someone who could handle their needs, but had it been a way to slip in and out of her bed?
As far as seduction techniques went, it was a good one. It had absolutely worked on her.
Now she had a whole day to waste since she wasn’t scheduled for a shift.
Her stomach growled. Why couldn’t she be one of those women who wasted away when she was heartsick? Nope. When her heart hurt, she wanted pancakes. And she’d expended a ton of energy the night before.
So now she had to drag her sorry ass to the café since she didn’t have any groceries here. She’d eaten her last protein bar and hadn’t worked up the will to walk two miles to the store and two miles back.
She sniffled and forced herself to put on some makeup, to dry her hair and put it in a neat ponytail. Forced herself to put on clean clothes. She would go to the café and order what she could afford, and maybe if she was lucky Christa would need some help with the after-church rush. Sometimes it got overwhelming and she stepped in for an hour or two. The tips from the church crowd weren’t the best, but it would pass some time. Tomorrow she would work her shift and go to the mechanic and give him the go-ahead to fix her car. By the end of the week, she would be able to pay it off and she’d be gone by the weekend.
Another few days and she would be on the road to Mexico, Josh and Grim in her rearview mirror.
Hopefully she would have learned her damn lesson.
She wished she hadn’t slept so well the night before. She’d had one dream, and Grim had been there to wrap her up and ease her back to sleep. After that she’d slept like a baby, and she hadn’t in so very long.
Maybe the nightmare had been the reason they hadn’t hung around. Her dreams could be…upsetting.
She closed the mirrored door to the closet.
Just the night before she’d looked at herself in that mirror and watched as she’d been between Josh and Grim. She’d thought about how sexy they looked together.
Now she looked weary.
Last night she’d been ready to explore some insane new world with them, and today she was right back to the world she actually lived in, the one filled with anxiety and pain. The one where she never stopped looking over her shoulder.
She’d been fooling herself when she’d thought about taking this time and leaving. She stared at the woman in the mirror.
You thought maybe they could save you. You thought if they could love you, you might be able to tell them, and then you wouldn’t be so fucking alone. Then you wouldn’t have to fight this fight forever.