Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
I love the way he loves mom too.
He’s always grabbing her hand and holding it tight like he’s afraid someone’s going to take her from him. It’s romantic, but it also showed me at an early age that love—real love was possible.
Izzy proved that further after our first kiss.
She’ll soon be in someone else’s arms.
Someone else’s bed.
I down more wine in front of me and start piling my plate high. I don’t want to think about things like that. About another guy touching her when it should be my hands.
I need to focus.
The last thing I need is to burn through more medicine, so I breathe in and out, make small talk and laugh at Ash’s confused expression while my dad tries to explain that Izzy’s just having a moment.
Nobody asks about Jenna, but everyone basically hates her.
I’m truly not paying her enough.
I feel bad. She’s super uncomfortable, staring down at her plate and begging it to somehow bomb the table.
Chaos ensues when more of the cousins show up late to eat, including King, who takes one look at Jenna and shakes his head at me like he’s disappointed.
I just shrug.
Because my only other option is to pull him aside and say, “Bro, I’m dying. I can’t do this to Izzy; just trust me.”
Not the conversation I want to have. Ever.
Jenna and I make awkward eye contact throughout dinner while King watches us like we’re a reality show.
I don’t help clear the dishes; I just grab Jenna by the arm and take her outside toward the bar by the pool.
“What do you want to drink?” I ask, ignoring the giant ass elephant in the room.
“What the hell is going on?” She slams her clutch onto the bar top and hops on the stool. “You asked for a favor; I thought oh, normal family dinner. Why the hell does everyone have a weapon?”
“Reasons,” I say simply. “We’re not… normal.”
“No shit.” She huffs and does a small circle. “I thought your dad was going to chop me up with his knife.”
I frown. “What knife?”
“The freaking one he kept pointing at me under the table whenever I grabbed my napkin. It’s silver with a red crest.”
I don’t laugh, but God, I want to. Leave it to Dad to try to scare her away. See? He knows me well. “Don’t worry about it; he’s teasing.”
“Oh riiiight, my dad teases my friends with his shotgun all the time, even chases them off the porch, then tosses a grenade at their car!”
I laugh. “Come on, we had zero grenades.”
“But everyone teased about having them!” She points out. “It’s weird. Isn’t that illegal anyway?”
I have to admit, she does favors well.
I don’t say it out loud, but clearly, she’s never been to a real mafia family dinner, clearly that’s sort of the point.
I think about it for a minute. “Hmm, I don’t know?”
I pass her a shot of tequila and wait for her to toss it back, so she’s easier to deal with.
She downs it then taps the bar top for more with her white nails.
Three shots later, she finally seems relaxed and looks around. “Just how rich are you?”
“Very.” Is all I say. “Somewhere in between, we should buy more islands, and how the hell are we going to hide all this money.”
“Damn.” She examines her nails then looks up at me, her blue eyes lock on mine. “Why am I here, Maksim? You broke up with me, and not in a nice way, but a very brutal I still have a salad to eat, and we’re in public way.”
“Yeahhhh…” I pour myself a shot and toss it back. “About that.”
Her eyebrow arches.
She really is pretty, even though she seems fake. Blond hair, perfectly arched eyebrows, full pale lips, high cheekbones.
I should have picked someone dumb, but I trust her, weird I know, but she doesn’t talk shit to others, she keeps to herself and it just, I don’t know why but she’s… different even though I’m not attracted to her, she made it easy to use her instead of Izzy.
“I need five days,” I say again. “Five days of you dating me or at least looking like we’re back together. I’ll pay you fifty grand.”
Her eyes widen. “Ten grand a day? What am I doing? Sucking your dick twenty-four seven?”
“Nice.” I laugh. “No, you’ll just be pretending to.”
Her brows furrow. “But why?”
“That, I can’t tell you. I just need it to look like we’re together.”
She grabs the tequila bottle and tosses back a few swallows, then wipes her mouth and sets it back down. “Why?”
I shrug. “I won’t tell you. Do a good job, and the Porsche is yours. Think of it as a bonus.”
Her hands freeze on the shot glass. “Did you say the Porsche?”
Her weakness, one of my favorite cars, I should have led with that. “Yeah, the red Porsche… tempted.”