Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 310(@200wpm)___ 248(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“Then, why are you doing this?” I asked, my heart plummeting with the truth in his words.
“You know why,” he said in a whisper, like he hated himself.
Our families despised each other.
Jordan personally hated him.
If I thought my brothers would be mad at our age difference, it was nothing on me being interested in a Sinclair. There would be blood in the water.
In no universe would this work.
I watched the blooming flower I’d held dear in my heart from Chase’s attention shrivel and die. My throat was tight with the fight to hold back tears. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I refused to cry.
It didn’t matter that I’d met my match.
The first person I’d ever been with who understood me completely.
All that mattered was that it was over.
“Fine,” I whispered, choking on the word as I wrenched the door open.
His hand clamped down around my wrist before I could go. “Wait.”
“What?” I gasped. “You’ve made your point.”
“I don’t want to ask you to—I have no right,” he said, the words like broken glass in his throat. “But wait for me.”
“You’re right,” I spat, yanking my wrist free. “You have no right to ask for that.”
“I know, and still, I’m asking.”
“I won’t do it.”
He nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”
“For what?”
“Graduation.”
I managed a glare that I didn’t feel. Only sick and hopeful and furious and wanting it so badly, all at the same time.
“It’s a waste of time.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I’ll be there either way.”
I just shook my head and turned and walked out of his house. He might be saying wait, but he didn’t mean it. Three years. Anything could happen in three years. In my experience, no one was waiting that long. He’d be long moved on by then. At least this was the reminder I needed that school came first, and I wouldn’t forget it again.
Part II
Pining
9
Chase
August
“I’m not going to this fucking event,” I told my father.
“You’re going. We need a Sinclair representing the Sinclair Realty interests with the new mayor,” my father, Arnold Sinclair, told me.
“Sinclair interests don’t interest me. I have my own law firm. That’s all that I’m dealing with.”
“A law firm that I funded with Sinclair money,” he reminded me.
It was the nail in the coffin. He’d given me a huge sum of money to move to Lubbock from Houston, where I’d been working for a successful real estate law firm. My business partner and I had made the move back to my hometown and opened the firm Sinclair & Cruz LLC. But now, my dad held that fact over me all the fucking time.
“Can I just pay you back all the money so that you’ll stop using this against me?”
“Could you instead do this small favor that I’m asking of you? What’s the worst that could happen? You schmooze with Jensen at a fancy dinner, have a drink, and come home. That’s it.”
That wasn’t it.
That was the problem.
Jensen Wright was running for mayor.
He was going to win. That was obvious. But the mayor had not been a Wright in a long fucking time.
And my father always had an in with the mayor. An in that he needed to keep. Which meant we needed a presence with the family that hated us.
The family that I’d avoided like the literal plague since Jordan and Annie’s wedding. A point that Ashleigh had made a few times since, but she didn’t know the real reason. She thought it was because of Annie. Hell, Annie herself thought I had been avoiding her because of the wedding. They couldn’t have all been more wrong.
It was Harley.
I hadn’t seen her since the day after the wedding. And as much as it pained me, I couldn’t chance seeing her again. I didn’t have enough self-control to be in her orbit.
“I won’t take no for an answer,” my dad said as he strode toward my office door.
I blew out a harsh breath. Great.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Just this once.”
My dad smiled at me as if he’d already known that he had me under his thumb. And he probably did. I owed him a lot, but how much more would he ask for?
“Thanks, son. This means a lot to me.”
I sighed once he was gone and sank back into my office chair. Well, there went my weekend.
Part of me hoped desperately that because Tech hadn’t started school yet, she wouldn’t even be there. The other part of me was hoping against all hope that she’d be there.
It had been five months since she’d walked out of my door and not looked back. Surely, she’d moved on by now despite how I’d stupidly asked her not to. I’d thought that distance would help me move on, too, but instead, I just missed her.
Tonight was going to be interesting.
I stared up at Wright Construction in dismay.
My office was only a few blocks down Broadway in the historic downtown area, but I almost never drove by here. I hadn’t stepped foot inside in since our high school debutante days. They’d rented out the top floor when Ashleigh debuted. The building had been a staple of the community for nearly as long as Lubbock had been incorporated. There was a reason Wrights were royalty here.