Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 140742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140742 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
I lock the door and set the flowers on the counter, plucking the note.
These made me think of you. - F
My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest as I set the note down and pick up my phone.
Me: idk how you managed to get these so quickly, or why, but they’re beautiful. Thank you. PS. this doesn’t excuse your tantrum.
I watch the little bubbles that say he’s typing back appear and disappear twice before his text finally comes through.
Finn: I know
That’s it. It’s all he says. I wait a little longer and when nothing else comes in, I put my phone down and take the flowers to my coffee table. Olivia texts to let me know she’s bringing pizza, so I start picking up the apartment, and it’s only then that something hits me … How does Finn know where I live?
23
FINN
“You’re so fucking petty,” Lucas says, laughing as he pours himself a drink.
“I never said I wasn’t.”
I focus on the stack of papers in front of me, while my cousin walks around the penthouse telling me what he likes and doesn’t like about it. The penthouse he currently lives in is in the building beside the one I’m remodeling, but unlike me, he met with the builder and had a say in every detail of his.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to just give in and work for our dads?” he asks as he paces.
I stop everything I’m doing and look at him. “No. Do you?”
Our fathers were born with silver spoons in their mouths and gained access to their inheritance when they turned twenty-one. While my dad made smart investments, Lucas’ blew threw a lot of it, something that’s very difficult to accomplish considering the amount of zeros in his bank account. It may have been for the best. My uncle married someone outside of our social circle, which is practically unheard of, and Lucas and his brother Asher were raised in a very normal household. As normal as growing up in a high-class household could be. My aunt was a homemaker and very present in their lives—in mine as well—and kept them grounded. She was my biggest cheerleader when my career took off, and still is.
More often than not, when I was growing up, I wished I’d lived with them. But I didn’t, and because of that, I had no qualms about walking away. It’s not like I was going to gain access to my inheritance if I hadn’t. The way things are set up now, only our money managers can touch that money until we’re thirty-five. Not that we need it. We’ve both received money since we were born just for existing.
Even if I didn’t, there’s no way I’d ever work for my father, and he hates that. He hates that I’ve paved my own way, doing something I actually love. I used to hate him for it, until I realized he was probably envious of me since he didn’t do the same. It never occurred to him that it was an option, so he couldn’t get out from under my grandfather’s thumb. He couldn’t marry the woman he actually loved or do whatever it was he would have done if he hadn’t been born a Barlow. That’s on him, though.
“Why would you even consider it?” I ask after a moment. “You have everything you want and more. You’ve built it.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Is that what you tell yourself? Our monthly allowance—”
“Yes, fine, you started out in a much better financial situation than most, but it’s not like you can survive off of our monthly allowance forever.”
He laughs. “If my mom hears you say that, I think she’d slap you.”
“She probably would.” I feel my lips tug. “She’s always been the most normal of us all.”
“What happens when they die?” he asks. “Our dads, I mean. We’ll have no idea what to do since we’ve never paid attention to any of it.”
“I don’t know, Luke, but we have a lot of lawyers, so I wouldn’t worry about it. You’ve been your own boss your whole life. Do you really want to answer to someone, let alone our dads?” I ask, brows raised.
I can’t imagine he would. I sure as hell wouldn’t. I start sorting everything into individual stacks—one stack for my real estate, one for anything that has to do with the Owls, and a third for things about Mallory. My phone buzzes with a text from Tom, my private investigator, and I open it to see pictures of Josslyn sitting at a coffee shop across from Tate. White heat spreads through my body in an instant.
I knew he’d find a way to speak to her again, but I didn’t think it would be so soon, and I definitely didn’t think she’d give him the time of day. The fact that she did annoys the fuck out of me, but that’s not even what annoys me the most. She’s wearing Tiago’s basketball jersey. I wish I could reach into the screen and rip it off her. I don’t know what the fuck it is about this girl that makes me feel this way, but the most insignificant things make me see red.