Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
She hadn’t come at me with a crowbar, looking for chinks in my armor.
She’d just kept inching her way under my skin until my walls stopped making sense.
And I’d let her.
Despite knowing better.
Because I’d been avoiding the truth since we’d arrived in Tennessee.
With Levee, I’d mistaken proximity for connection.
With Lofton, I’d prayed that our connection was only because of proximity.
Anything to convince myself that it wasn’t real, and she’d eventually let go.
And now I was standing in the fallout of that mistake, scared out of my mind, that she was finally going to prove me right.
When we got through the gate at the beach house and parked in the sea of Guardian’s black SUVs, she bolted out of the car before I even had my door open.
I rounded the hood, catching her just before she made it to the stairs leading to the front door. “Lofton, come on. Just talk to me.”
She stopped abruptly and then slowly turned to face me.
The woman was expressive—every thought, every feeling, always written somewhere I could find if I looked hard enough. But as she peered up at me, everything was locked down tight. And that might have been the part that scared me the most.
Lofton didn’t want me to get a read on her.
“So now you want to talk,” she said evenly. “After I was absolutely blindsided back there? Now you want to talk?”
I blew out a hard breath. “I was going to tell you. I just—”
Fucked up.
Waited too long.
Failed you.
“I’m sorry,” I finished instead.
“Is this what you do?” Her arms crossed over her chest. Defensive. Guarded. Nothing like the woman who used to lean into me without thinking. “You get a new client. Say all the right things. Make her feel safe. Then you do the brooding, emotionally unavailable thing. Let her think she’s breaking through. Give her tiny morsels so she feels special. Just enough that when she finally acts, she thinks it was her idea. And then you don’t even have to make the first move. She’s already there.”
Bile crawled up my throat as her eyes locked with mine.
“Congratulations, Devon. You slept with Levee Williams and Lofton Beck. Your celebrity bingo card must be filling up nicely.”
“This isn’t a fucking game,” I snapped. “I never slept with Levee.”
“Bullshit!” she roared, her voice echoing off the house, assaulting me from all angles. And she wasn’t done with me yet. Her voice shifted into an eerie calm. “So, tell me, Devon. Who got you off harder? The rock star or the actress?”
My head jerked to the side. “That was a low fucking blow.”
She bent down, taking her heels off one by one, and hurled them into the bushes. “Is it safe to assume that means it was Levee?”
“I did not sleep with her,” I repeated, slower and unmistakably clear.
“But you wanted to,” she shot back.
I exhaled sharply, forcing the words out before instinct could twist them into something easier. “Yeah. I did. And I was a fucking dumbass.”
“You’re right about that one.” She stepped around me, heading for the steps again. “We need to leave early in the morning. I want Nobu tonight. Black cod. Yellowtail. I’ll send you the wine—”
“That’s not you, Lofton,” I growled. “Quit hiding behind the diva bullshit.”
She spun around, hurt bleeding through her anger. “Me? Hiding? I just found out you’re in love with Levee Williams and never thought to mention it.”
“Was,” I corrected. “Past tense. Though I’m not completely sure that’s accurate either.”
“Okay, well, is this accurate, Devon? You knew everything about me. I handed you every embarrassing, devastating, ugly piece of my life. My dad. The farm. Sebastian.” Her hand pressed to her chest. “And you, Mr. Always Has a Plan, Always One Step Ahead, just never thought I deserved the real you in return?”
“This is the real me.”
She laughed without humor. “No. This is the curated version made specifically for Lofton Beck. The smooth edges, laced with just enough charm and truth to ultimately lead me to fall head over heels into your bed.”
“That’s not what happened. And you know it.”
“Then what did happen? Please, God, enlighten me. Because right now, it looks a hell of a lot like you struck out with Levee Williams, so you put on the performance of a lifetime and found me to fill her shoes.”
She could have kicked me in the nuts. Hand to God, I would have preferred it. “That’s not fair.”
“None of this is!” she boomed. “Because, now I have to wonder if any of this was actually ever about me. Or if I’ve just been cast in a role I didn’t even realize I auditioned for.”
My patience snapped. “Trust me, babe. If I was trying to find some fucked-up way to continue that nightmare with her, there are far easier targets than you.”
“Bullshit? She and I have way more in common than those ‘easier targets’.” She lifted her hand in the air, dropping fingers one by one as she spoke. “Woman in danger that you made feel safe. Forced to spend an exorbitant amount of time together. Falling for her.” Her eyes sharpened on mine as she dropped the last two fingers, my stomach dropping right along with them. “You sleeping with her. And her falling in love with you.”