Total pages in book: 227
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 220940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1105(@200wpm)___ 884(@250wpm)___ 736(@300wpm)
I laugh. “She’s something else, right?”
He laughs too, but it’s nervous. He thinks I might reinforce that. I won’t. In light of the bugged phones and bodies turning up all over the city with the Black family emblem carved into them, I’m even more passionate about the spa’s delayed completion. “You just keep going at the pace we agreed, Alan. I’ll drop the next payment round next week.”
“Thanks, Danny.”
“Welcome.” I hang up and dial Rose.
“Finally,” she breathes down the line. “I need you home. Now.”
She doesn’t need to ask me twice. I get up and head for the door to track down my baby. “Is everyone okay?”
“We’re fine. I just need you to come home.”
“I’m on my way.”
I walk through the door and listen. I’m not sure what for. “Rose?” She appears from the kitchen, a glass of wine in her hand. “I thought you couldn’t do that while breast feeding?” I lower Maggie to the floor in her car seat and take my jacket off.
“It’s small, and I really need it.”
“Why?”
“Daniel’s been thrown out of school.”
“Why?”
“He threatened to stab a kid with your fancy gold letter opener.”
I laugh. “What?” How the fuck does he know about Pops’s letter opener?
“It’s not funny, Danny.”
“No, it’s not.” I turn, jacket in hand, and leave the house again.
“Where are you going?” she yells.
“To solve the problem.” The fucker. He throws my kid out, after all the money I’ve invested into that school? I’ve paid for new flood lights, new sports equipment, landscaping. I can’t say it was all completely selfless.
“Danny, for Christ’s sake, you can’t go around threatening principals.”
“Watch me.”
My arm is grabbed, and I’m hauled back. Rose gasps. “Ouch, fuck, ouch!”
I look her up and down, alarmed. “What? What is it?”
She holds a palm over a boob. “It’s nothing. Lennox walked into me earlier and knocked one of them.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe, but I’m not.” What the fuck? Lennox doesn’t do a very good job of hiding his attraction to my wife. I get it. She’s a showstopper, but he should take a leaf out of every other man’s book and abstain from admiring, or risk being bludgeoned.
“Oh, shut up,” Rose snaps. “And you need to have a word with Alan at the spa. Make sure he’s finished in two weeks.” She takes my arm and manhandles me back into the house.
How the fuck did this turn around on me? “I’ve had a word with Alan. It’s not possible.”
She swings a disgusted look my way. “So you can get an underground bunker big enough to serve the US military finished in two weeks, but I can’t get a few sinks plumbed in a few days?”
I shrug, collecting Maggie and making my way to the kitchen. I find Mum over the stove, doing her favorite thing—feeding people. “You just can’t get the staff these days,” I say, dropping a kiss on Mum’s cheek and handing over Maggie. “I appreciate you, Mum,” I say, surprising her. “I just want you to know that.”
“Are you okay?”
“Wonderful.” I face my wife with a big smile. “Date night?”
She recoils. “Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“No, Danny. Did you not hear what I said?”
“Yes, but you won’t let me go to the principal and have a discussion, so we may as well go out for dinner.”
“You need to talk to Daniel.”
She’s right, I do, but after today, actually, I’d rather either kill a principal or fuck my wife brutally. And I’m being blocked on both. “If I talk to Daniel, can we go out for dinner?”
Her smile is small and coy, and I swoop in, looping an arm around her waist, tugging her close, but not so close I put pressure on her chest. My dick sings its happiness.
“Well?” I grind into her subtly, mindful of my daughter and her grandma behind us. “I promise not to kill anyone for appetizers or mains.” I kiss the corner of her mouth, tasting the wine. “And maybe we can take dessert at home.”
Her anticipation is being breathed all over my face. “Okay.”
Fuck, yes. I brush our noses, rub my hardening cock into her groin, and kiss her hard. “Be ready in half an hour.”
I leave on quick feet, going straight up the stairs to Daniel’s room. He’s on his bed. No phone. “Confiscated?” I ask, shutting the door.
His head drops to the side. “And my console, and my iPad, and my whole damn life.”
I go to the bed and get on, resting against the headboard next to him. “What happened, kid?”
“He said you were a murderer.”
Oh? He did, did he? But what can I say? Whoever he is, he’s right. “Sticks and stones and all that, kid.”
“And he said his dad’s going to lock you up forever, and I won’t have a dad anymore.”
Say what, now? “Who the fuck said that?”
“Preston Bean. His dad’s a cop. So I told him to shut his stupid mouth or I’d stab him in the eye with my murdering dad’s favorite gold letter opener.”