Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97199 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97199 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’m falling in love with her.
No. I am in love with her.
I have no fucking idea if I’ll get a future with her, but I’m going to do what I can to prove to her that I’m a good man.
“Where is Mr. Haines?” I ask the question even though I know this guy won’t give me an answer.
“Out.”
I shake my head. “Out where?”
“Where you can’t reach him.” He points a finger at me. “You can leave. I will let Mr. Haines know you’re looking for him. I can’t promise you anything beyond that.”
I turn around and storm toward a bank of elevators. I poke my finger into the call button several times.
“You only need to press it once,” a woman standing next to me says.
I glance at her briefly, but all I offer in response is a curt nod.
“I heard you were looking for Percy,” she whispers. “I may know where he is for a price.”
I look at her again. Judging by the expression on her face, the price involves my dick, so I take a deep breath to steady my emotions. I don’t want to snap at her. “What price?”
“A dry martini,” she purrs, her green eyes lighting up. “Buy me a drink, and let’s see where the day takes us.”
“I’m in love,” I say it for the first time out loud. “I believe the woman I love is with Percy right now. I need for her not to be, so if you can help me out in any way, I’d appreciate it. If the price for that help is what I think it is, it’s a hard pass.”
She sighs deeply. “Percy is pond scum. I’m not surprised he’s making a move on someone else’s woman.”
Opal isn’t my woman, so to speak, but she is the woman I want to spend all the days that are ahead of me with.
“Do you know where he is?” I push.
The elevator doors slide open, so she gestures for me to step inside. I wave a hand to allow her to enter first. She does so with a flip of her long brown hair over her shoulder.
As soon as the doors shut, she looks at me. “Do you know where he lives? Have you been to his apartment?”
Lola added his home address to his file shortly after I took him on as a client, so I nod. “I swung by there. No one is home.”
“He loves to hang out at this pub in the Financial District.” She rolls her eyes. “He had a fling with a server there. She was a friend of mine until I introduced Percy to her.”
“My condolences on the loss of your friend. That weasel wasn’t worth it.”
Her gaze follows the numbers on the panel as we descend. “You’re telling me. I wouldn’t put it past Percy to take another woman there to try and make Sarah jealous. Sarah is my former friend.”
“I came here from there,” I tell her.
I knew it was a long shot when I took a cab to that bar, but panic is driving my movements.
She doesn’t say another word until we both exit the elevator. As she crosses the lobby toward the building’s exit, I walk next to her, waiting for anything that may lead me to Percy.
Just as we reach the doors leading out to the sidewalk, she looks up and into my face. “His grandfather lives on the Upper West Side. I don’t know the exact address, but the building is on West 78th and Amsterdam. We were on our way to a meeting one morning, and Percy made the driver take us there first so he could check on his grandfather. That’s the main reason I introduced him to Sarah. I thought he was a good guy.”
I can’t imagine Percy taking Opal to meet anyone, but I’m grasping for anything here, so I’ll head in that direction.
“Thank you,” I say to her.
“Rescue her from him.” She half-laughs. “If I had a choice between you and Percy, I know who I would choose.”
I take the compliment with a smile. “You’ve been very helpful…”
“Hope,” she fills in the blank for me. “My mom told me to always live up to my name if I could, so I hope I did that today.”
I chuckle at her play on words. “You did, Hope. Take care of yourself.”
“Take care of the woman you love.” She smiles. “Damn, she’s lucky.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
I mean it because whether or not Opal ever feels the same way about me as I do about her, I consider myself the luckiest man in the world. I got to spend time with her, and I’m a changed man because of that.
57
Opal
“I’ll see Louie again tomorrow,” Aunt Hildy tells me as we enter her brownstone. “I can’t wait.”
I can tell that’s true by the giddiness in her voice.