Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 170878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 854(@200wpm)___ 684(@250wpm)___ 570(@300wpm)
“I’m not going to let you fall, Hannah,” His grunted response lit up my nervous system. There seemed to be a double meaning behind those words.
Even when I was sober, deciphering Beau’s remarks made my head hurt. Drunk? Impossible.
“Why wouldn’t you?” I asked. “What do I matter to you?”
Was there bitter resentment in my tone? Desperation? Hope?
I wanted to sound biting, angry, and strong. But I feared I sounded tired and pathetic.
Beau’s mouth flattened further, and instead of answering, he lifted his hand to my shoulder, pulling the shoulder strap of my small purse to untangle it from my jacket.
I’d tried to take off my jacket while still wearing a cross-body purse, creating a straitjacket out of it. Beau’s large hands carefully extracted me.
I held my breath, at him being so close, so careful. So gentle. Every action directly at odds with everything I’d ever experienced from him.
I waited. Readied myself. For him to say something. For him to reprimand me. It was not professional to come back drunk. Granted, I wasn’t actively taking care of Clara, nor was I expected to for the rest of the night. It was my time off to do what I wanted, but it made things kind of murky when we lived together. Everything about this job became murkier by living together.
I should’ve been on my best behavior. And I had been. For months. Tiptoeing around him, minding my words, my manners. Yet that hadn’t done anything but raise my cortisol levels and mess with my sleep.
I was entitled to let loose. I was of age. No laws were broken.
So why did I feel like I was about to be punished? Why did the idea of Beau Shaw punishing me … excite me?
The silence between us pulsed like a living thing. He didn’t step back; he was still standing close to me, my head tipped up to regard him, waiting.
“Did you have fun?” he asked, voice low.
I blinked up at him. No harsh words. No punishments—which was a good thing. I think the punishments I had in mind were against the law for an employer to do to an employee.
I licked my lips. “Fun?”
He nodded, his eyes fixed on my lips with an expression I couldn’t place.
I thought about the night again, the music, laughter, glimpses into the other women’s lives, into sisterhoods carved and maintained. Families. Things that were sacred.
I thought about how easily Lori and I got along, how we’d already exchanged numbers and made plans to hang out.
“Yes,” I answered quietly. “I had a lot of fun.”
“Good.” As he gave me a once-over as if he was checking my body for something, I didn’t miss the heat in his gaze. You couldn’t miss it, even while wearing champagne goggles that made everything else so blurry. I could see Beau clearer than ever.
“How did you get home?”
Yet again, I was stunned at the question. That he was willingly staying in my presence—right up close to me—and making conversation.
“I, uh, I ordered a rideshare.” I rubbed the back of my neck. My head was starting to throb, and there was a little voice whispering to me about breaching the small distance between Beau and me just to see what he’d do if I kissed him.
Beau.
The man I hated. I’d never wanted to kiss him before. Never even thought about it. Maybe once. Or twice. I was only human. Objectively, Beau Shaw was hot. If you overlooked how much of an asshole he was.
He went still. “Rideshare?”
I bit my lip. I knew he was older than me and not very social or technically minded, but surely even he knew about the revolution in ridesharing and the apps that perpetuated it. Then again, Jupiter was small. They still had an available taxi service. Granted, it only had one driver who was eighty years old and couldn’t drive in the dark.
Maybe Beau truly didn’t know what a rideshare was.
“Um, it’s this app that you—”
“I know what the fuck it is.” He interrupted me with a familiar fury in his tone.
His anger crawled along my skin, making my hair stand on end. I was more used to negative emotions from Beau, but this was confusing. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Why didn’t you call me?” he demanded.
We were still standing uncomfortably close. Before, it was unnerving, torturous, intoxicating with him speaking in a low rumble with heat in his eyes.
Now it was suffocating, infuriating, yet somehow still arousing as all hell.
I stared at him. “Why would I call you?”
“So I could get you home,” he bit out.
Him? Get me home? This was becoming more confusing by the second.
“Clara’s sleeping. You couldn’t come get me and leave her,” I pointed out pragmatically.
Beau looked toward the hallway, as if he just remembered his daughter even though it was impossible for him to forget her. She was his whole world.