Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“Pretty sure if I didn’t get fired, I’d immediately get demoted to a low administrative position,” Emmett said, meeting my gaze.
“So you’re saying you're scared.”
“That isn’t what I said at all,” he replied. “Making very purposeful, strategic career moves is not the same as being scared.”
I set my jaw, anger rising up inside me. “So it is just about money for you. As usual.”
Rain was coming down harder now, and the top of Emmett’s shirt and his hair were damp.
“Can I get inside, please?” Emmett said, and I realized I was blocking the door from the deck.
Landry was inside, near the breakfast bar, holding up his hands as if to play at being neutral. “I see your point, Storm. Both of us hate working for Cutmore. But if Emmett doesn’t get promoted to partner, we know exactly who will, and it won’t be pretty. We have to play the game of company politics in order to get what we want.”
So you eat shit from homophobic, heartless fucks for now, all while they bankroll your lifestyle.
I didn’t say it out loud, because I didn’t know Landry like that yet, and he seemed like a nice guy.
But with Emmett, I had no reason to hold back.
“Keep deluding yourself that you have to live life the way you’ve always lived it,” I told Emmett after he came inside, soaked in rain. A lightning bolt flashed bright outside, thunder clapping loudly through the air right before he managed to shut the door.
“I live life the way I always have,” Emmett said.
“With a silver spoon in your mouth and in your hand,” I said. Really not holding back.
His eyes flashed up to mine with more anger in them than I’d ever seen.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Whoa, whoa,” Landry said, trying to calm things down again.
“It’s not just about money, and you know it isn’t,” Emmett said, his gaze like fire. I knew he was thinking about his dad, and I was more sympathetic to that than anything.
But I couldn’t stand the idea that Emmett was working for a homophobe. Couldn’t stand the idea of just taking that kind of shit.
He deserved better.
I wanted better, for him.
“Just think about it, okay?” I said, trying to make my voice sound calm and even again, but failing.
But Emmett’s expression turned to stone. “It’s just executive corporate politics, Storm. It’s how it is.”
He may as well have spit in my face.
He wasn’t even going to consider that I might have a point, no matter what I said, and it pissed me off in a way that ran deep. Years of emotion flashed through me all at once, and suddenly I had the funny feeling that I’d been dead wrong earlier tonight on the patio.
I didn’t belong here at all. Didn’t belong with these types of people. Landry and Emmett both came from old, long lines of money, and they were exactly the kind of people that I’d never fit in with.
I’d been pretty stupid to think, just for a second, that I could.
I reached down and picked up Oreo, cradling her close to my chest.
“All right. I’m heading out.”
My chest felt tight. I gave Landry a curt nod, but I couldn’t look Emmett in the eye again. I had felt so close with him earlier tonight—closer than I’d ever felt with another man, to be honest. But that felt like it had all disappeared in an instant.
I shoved the front door open and trudged through a heavy rain back over to my house, holding Oreo close against my chest and protecting her from the rain. I got inside my house, looking around at everything I couldn’t wait to fix up and renovate.
I’d vowed long ago never to let anyone tell me I didn’t matter.
Emmett hadn’t said it, but beneath his words, it was all I could hear. It’s just executive corporate politics, Storm. As if I could never comprehend his world. As if I was just some meathead football player with a penchant for fighting, not meant to understand the finer air of the lives of rich folk.
When I stripped off my clothes to shower off, I noticed a tiny mark at the base of my neck, just above my collarbone.
Emmett had gently sucked on my skin there just a few hours ago, leaving the mark.
My heart lurched.
It had been so good, when we were together.
What business did I have making out with him and coming all over his chest? I still felt like it was an equation that didn’t add up, a puzzle where I could barely make any pieces fit.
I hated him, but I really liked him, too. He felt so good, and then I hated him all over again. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been as turned on as I was earlier, and every second we spent with our clothes off felt so right.