Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94279 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 471(@200wpm)___ 377(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
“I think you’re too young to go out with girls.”
“How old were you when you started?” he countered.
My inner soundtrack played a big whomp whomp. Apparently hypocrisy was a large part of raising kids. But I wasn’t about to share that I’d been getting head at fourteen, and the best fifteenth-birthday present I’d received was seventeen-year-old Stacey Donovan letting me bury myself inside her. I was starting to realize there was a fine line between earning a teenager’s trust with honesty and steering them in the right direction. I decided to shift the focus back to him.
“What’s this bird’s name you want to go out with?”
“Kate.”
“Okay. Tell me why you want to take Kate out?”
Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know. Everyone’s doing it.”
I pointed. “Wrong answer. I don’t give two shits what everyone else is doing, and you shouldn’t, either. A man should act with purpose. If you want to take this Kate out, it should be because you like her, and you should be able to state the reasons why you like her—not that other blokes are all into girls.”
Lucas frowned. “You’re really annoying.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll meet you halfway. This Kate can come over here, if I speak to her parent first and it’s okay with them. But you’re hanging out in the living room, not going up to your room or doing dodgy shit. And you keep your hands to yourself.”
He seemed to consider that for a moment, but then lifted his chin to my computer monitor. “Who was the woman on your screen when I walked in?”
“Someone I met at a friend’s wedding in New York last weekend. Her name is Sloane. Why?”
He grinned and cupped his hands at his chest—the universal sign language for boobs. “I figured out why I like Kate. I think it’s the same reason you like Sloane.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “Get the hell out of my office, you knucklehead.”
Lucas disappeared, so I forced myself to call up the contract I was supposed to be reading. But two paragraphs in, I found myself scrolling over to my photo library again. I managed to stop before clicking into the folder, but after few more pages of the boring contract, I somehow wound up on the Hayes Media website. Dad owned a shit ton of magazines and newspapers, and I knew the corporate website had links to all the different lines of business. Finding the Bride magazine tab, I got a little too excited when I discovered a page labeled Meet the Team. Four people down, there was a photo of Sloane Carrick.
The photo was nice, a typical professional headshot, but it didn’t capture her personality like the ones from the wedding did. Underneath, I read her bio.
Sloane Carrick is an associate editor. Her career with Bride magazine began with an internship in her junior year of college, and she has been an integral part of the team ever since. She pens the monthly featured wedding column and is the mastermind behind the uber successful Knot so Seriously YouTube channel where she hosts a weekly Q&A focused on bridal bliss and bloopers. She is a graduate of Binghamton University’s School of Journalism.
Sloane has three obsessions: spaghetti carbonara, cupcakes, and weddings. She began dreaming about her own big day at the age of seven and is currently planning her happily ever after with the love of her life on New Year’s Eve.
What the fuck? She’s engaged? My stomach twisted into a knot, and anger heated my cheeks. We’d sucked face in the coat closet, and I’d felt her up. It was through her clothes, but still, it counted. I stared at the photo, at the sweet smile on her face. Apparently that innocent look was the mask of a cheater.
Underneath her bio was a link and the YouTube logo.
Join Knot so Seriously weekly on Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern.
I looked at my watch. Nine there was three in the morning here. I’d be fast asleep by then. I tapped my pen on the desk as I gritted my teeth.
Engaged. The best kiss of my life is freaking engaged.
I’d wasted an entire morning stalking photos of a woman who was off-limits. A woman who was a cheat. The only thing I hated more than a cheater was one who pretended she wasn’t a cheater.
I sat at my desk, stewing, for a long-ass time. Eventually, I told myself it was just as well. I didn’t need to waste my days pining over a woman who worked for my father and lived thirty-five hundred miles away. In fact, what I needed was convenience at this point of my life. Convenient like Melanie Harper, who lived two blocks away and wanted nothing more from me than my dick. I’d spent a few fun nights at her place, and never once did I stalk the website of the company she worked for to read her damn bio. In fact, I wasn’t even sure where the hell she worked. Or what she did for a living, for that matter. Graphic designer? Or maybe it was guidance counselor. I was pretty sure it started with a g. Game developer? It didn’t matter. What mattered was convenience. So I picked up my phone and shot off a text to Melanie.