Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 24933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 83(@300wpm)
We agree on a price, and he tells me it’ll take a week, two at most. I say to send the bill to accounting, and to get it done as soon as possible.
The contractor’s barely hung up before I’m texting Morgan to clear my schedule all next week for the install crew. I want this handled. No fucking waiting around.
Later that night, I let myself into Tinsley’s apartment and find her curled on the sofa, feet tucked up, her laptop open and a mug balanced dangerously close to her knee. I just stand there, watching her for a minute. The light from the windows turns her hair to molten copper. She’s so fucking beautiful it makes my chest hurt.
I clear my throat. Her eyes flick up, cool and assessing. “You’re late,” she says, not even a hint of surprise.
“I had a busy day.” I drop onto the opposite couch, elbows on my knees. “I had a ton of work to catch up on. Plus, I arranged to have an exterior door installed in my office. That way the hands and staff don’t have to cut through the main house to get to my office.”
She stares for a beat, like she’s looking for the catch, the fine print. Then she nods, voice softer. “Thank you. Seriously.”
“Don’t thank me,” I say, picking up her foot and working my thumb along her arch. “I’d do anything to make you happy.”
Once the door install is done, we spend nearly every night at the ranch. The rhythm shifts. Her stuff slowly moves into my bedroom. She owns the space without even trying. Just like she claimed my goddamn heart.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TINSLEY
Everything is going great. Or, at least, it was until this morning. I wake up to the sound of the ranch coming alive outside the window and lie there for a moment in the particular warmth of Hudson’s bed, thinking that all is fine. Then the ceiling tilts, and I barely have time to rush to the bathroom before puking up my guts. Thank God, Hudson had an early morning flight to Dallas for a meeting, so he misses the whole thing.
Once it’s all over, I feel much better, so I figured there’s no harm in going to work. Which turns out to be a big freaking mistake. By lunchtime, my body decides to stage a coup, and the lobby at Montoya Investments is the primary battleground. It starts as a low-grade hum of nausea at my desk, the kind I tried to blame on the extra espresso I drank on the way to work, but has quickly escalated into a full-blown internal riot.
The fluorescent lights overhead seem to pulse with a malicious, rhythmic throb, vibrating against my temples.
When it gets to be too much to handle, I decide to grab a bottle of water. I push through the heavy swinging door of the break room, needing a second to breathe, to convince myself that I'm just coming down with the flu. Instead, I’m hit by a wall of scent so aggressive it feels like a physical shove to the chest. Someone who clearly lacks basic human empathy has decided to microwave leftover salmon.
The smell is pungent, oily, and thick enough to chew. It wraps around my throat like a cold hand, and my stomach doesn't just churn; it heaves. The metallic tang of sudden saliva coats my tongue, a warning sign that the battle is already lost. I don't even have time to offer a sharp word to the culprit sitting at the corner table, blissfully unaware of the biological warfare they've just unleashed. I turn on my heel and sprint, my heels clicking frantically against the marble.
I make it to the bathroom just as the first wave hits. I barely have time to kick the stall door shut before I'm on my knees, my polished professional veneer dissolving into the cold, clinical reality of throwing up in Montoya Investments’ bathroom. It's violent and exhausting, the kind of sickness that leaves your eyes watering and your throat burning with the sting of bile. I clutch the edges of the stall, my knuckles turning white against the shiny metal.
I sit back on my heels, the cool marble of the floor seeping through my slacks, providing a momentary anchor in the chaos. My breath comes in shallow, ragged hitches. The fluorescent lights in here hum with a relentless, buzzing energy that makes the spots in my vision dance.
A terrifying thought flickers at the edge of my mind, small and insistent. I try to brush it away, to categorize it as stress or a lingering stomach bug from the rainy night with Hudson, but my brain is already doing the math. I'm a careful person. I document things. I track my cycles with precision. And I’m regular as clockwork.