Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“And yet, it smells delicious. I heard your belly rumble. You can’t deny it.”
He points a thunderous finger at me like he’s going to bring lightning down from the sky and strike me with it. In other words, total god vibes. “You were going to have a house party. No, not a house party. A block party. Do you have any idea what the inside of this place would have looked like after?”
I flip the sandwich onto a plate and slide it across the island, which, lucky for me, currently stands between me and Mr. I Left You Unattended For Five Minutes And Look What Almost Happened.
“I said I was considering it. Maybe. Try the sandwich. We can’t have this conversation when you’re hangry. Nothing ever gets accomplished. You should probably also shed the fake facial hair. It must be a bitch to try and get cheese out of it.”
He stalks across the kitchen and grabs the perfectly toasted concoction like I’ve just thrown down, and he can’t resist a challenge. “A good therapist once told me it’s not always actions that speak the loudest. Intentions are just as harmful.”
I walk to the massive, industrial-sized stainless fridge and start gathering up the same ingredients to make myself round two, and probably round three and four, because I doubt a man who is Thorn’s size is going to be full after one sandwich.
I start assembling, using the bread I found in the fridge. Yes, in the fridge. From one person who doesn’t like waste to seemingly another, it’s those little telltale signs that say Thorn wasn’t always rich.
His online bio was pretty vague when it didn’t relate to his current company and net worth. I did some searching of my own, but apparently, if you’re rich enough, you can scrub even the internet to some level of cleanliness.
“You’ve seen a therapist?” I ask.
He flicks the freaking huge, hairy mustache up with one hand and brings the sandwich to his mouth with the other. Cheese strings pool out between the bread and his mouth, and oh my freaking flowers, does he have to make that deep, moaning sound of appreciation?
He pretends he didn’t make any such sound while he chews. I also pretend he didn’t so my face doesn’t burn at three thousand degrees.
I focus on the fake beard. It’s so shockingly real-looking, but spontaneous facial hair growth to this degree can’t actually be a thing, can it?
“Is that so surprising?”
The cutting board and knife that I used are still on the counter. I concentrate hard, ostensibly for knife safety. “Not really.” Yes. Guys like Thorn like to give the impression that they’re tough, gruff, and untouchable. None that I have ever met would be macho enough to admit they went to talk shop with a professional.
The ice shard lodged in my chest where Thorn is concerned starts to thaw just a little. Just to be clear, my chest, head, and lady bits are not in agreement on where we stand with this man. Also, just to be clear? It’s hard to stay staunchly on the opposing side of anything Thorn-related when he goes and makes it obvious that he’s a human and not just a robot.
“Before I did security, I saw some things in the past, in another life, that were…unsettling. I wanted to get over it because staying haunted wasn’t an option. Talking helped. I’d highly recommend it. Ten out of ten, as people like to say, but then, I had a great therapist.”
“That’s truly remarkable. I’m glad they were able to help.”
I mean it. I feel a stirring of pride and a little bit of hurt for the man Thorn was. If he’s doing high-level security now, it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that he did some kind of service. Special ops, military, navy? I doubt he was a killer for hire, so yeah, it’s probably something regimented. Not that you can’t see some horrible things go down even when you’re serving your country and not working rogue.
“Have you ever gone?”
This is just a straight-up reminder that my past is public knowledge and has been thumbed through and plundered by this man.
“No.” I’m not sure how the conversations shifted from him calling my bluff and showing up here to this level of intimacy. I swallow thickly, my palms feeling suddenly sweaty and uncomfortable on the knife. “There was no money left over after the hospital bills. The house and most of our things had to be sold. What I could scrape together after, I used to buy the bus.” I’m not the strong, independent type by choice. I guess. Maybe I’m not even all that strong and all that independent.
A normal person wouldn’t look up, just about chopping off a finger instead of hitting the sausage, and find Thorn’s frown the least bit attractive. At least not a normal, strong, independent person.