Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
“I’ve been waiting for you.” I shot him a look.
“I was busy kicking someone out of bed.” He winked.
“You were? Or Joss was?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Joslyn has become a major pain in my butt.” He pulled on a white apron, walked over to me, and squeezed me into a hug. “I’ve missed you. How was your holiday?”
“It’s not over. I’m going back in two days. But it’s splendid so far. Everything I ever dreamed of. I don’t know why I didn’t start going sooner.”
“Because you’re too much of a good girl to rebel.” He pulled away. “So, anything you want to tell me?”
“No.” I blushed despite myself and looked away quickly. Had Ben told my brother about us? They were friends, after all. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”
“Aside from the fact that I’m dying to drive that shiny new car of yours? Nope.”
“You can drive it to my place. I’ll drive yours.” I bumped his hip with mine as we started serving food on the plates. “How have Elias and Adeline been?”
“Oh, you know, trying to control the kingdom, but fine.”
“They are not controlling, Aramis.” I laughed. “You just don’t want to change, and that’s a problem for the family right now.”
“So, I’m a problem?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
“How?” he scoffed.
“Eli asked us not to call attention to ourselves, and that’s all you’ve been doing.”
“Really? Because unlike all of you, I happen to read the papers, and they’re all talking about how you’re partying too hard in Ibiza.”
“Ibiza is a party.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s not my fault they have nothing else to talk about right now.”
“That’s exactly how I feel about my situation.”
I smiled at the woman taking the plate in front of me and small-talked momentarily with her before turning back to my brother. “Your situation is entirely different. For starters, the women you sleep with are famous in their own right, and you treat them like crap. Publicly.”
“Yet they keep coming back.” He shrugged a shoulder.
“What you need is a swift kick in the butt. A woman who comes out of nowhere and makes you settle down once and for all.”
“Good luck with that. All the good ones are taken,” he scoffed.
“Joss isn’t taken.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it, frowning before shaking his head. “Joslyn hates me.”
“I never understood why.”
“We all have our secrets.” He shot me a look that spoke volumes, and I shut my mouth about love for the remainder of our time at the shelter. The last thing I needed was my brother lecturing me about Ben, and I was pretty sure he knew all about us.
CHAPTER 17
Pilar
I couldn’t stop laughing at the show my brother was putting on as he got inside my sparkly red sports car. He was acting like his car wasn’t just as luxurious. I shook my head from behind the wheel of his SUV and placed my phone on the magnetic holder he had tucked into the air vent. We all had them, a gift from Joslyn last year, so that when we were driving, we could still talk on the phone. I dialed my brother and saw him do the same thing with his phone in my car as he answered.
“Your seat is up to the steering wheel.”
“That’s because I’m much shorter than you.” I snapped on my seatbelt and fixed his seat so that it was closer to the steering wheel. “This is a safe car. A total dad car, if you ask me.”
“Dad car?” He chuckled. “I guess my Range Rover would be lame in comparison to this R8.”
“I agree.”
“We’re going to your place, right?”
“Yep. Unless you want to go get dinner. Or go to Eli and Addie’s.”
“Didn’t you just get in? Have you even been home?”
“Not yet.” I watched as the brake lights of my car flickered on, which meant he was about to start driving. I put the SUV into drive, as well.
“Are you hungry? We can get food delivered and tell Eli and Addie to meet us there.”
“That sounds like a better idea,” I agreed. “I’m going to call the little Chinese place by my house and order.”
“Okay. I’ll call Eli.”
We hung up and started to drive. Aramis peeled out of the parking spot with a loud rev of the engine, and I tried to follow with as much gusto, but his Range Rover wasn’t up to that kind of speed—too heavy. We reached the first light and passed it, then made a right. As we approached the second light, which crossed between a major street and the exit of the highway, I saw that we had five seconds to beat the yellow light that was approaching, and knew Aramis would slam the accelerator. I prepared to do the same, adrenaline coursing through me as we neared. I heard the engine of the car in front of me, felt the one of the vehicle I was in, but knew we wouldn’t beat the yellow. It would turn red as we passed, if we were lucky. It all played out in slow motion, the way one watches a movie that’s both terrifying and intriguing, a train wreck you can’t quite look away from.