Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91286 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
“Twenty.” I shake my head. “I remember when she was six.”
Olivia hums. “My Jenny is turning sixteen. They grow up so fast. You’ll see one day,” she says with a wink and then returns her attention to Henry and Keegan as they stroll side by side toward us and their carts, their caddies trailing behind.
It’s funny, as uncomfortable as our coffee shop meeting was yesterday, I’m oddly relaxed around this high-power CEO.
I peer over my shoulder to spot Belinda and the rest of her team—Lena, Gayle, and a fourth person I can’t identify from here—waiting at the start. The good old county commissioner is practicing her swing. Things couldn’t be going better if I’d planned them out myself.
“Do you enjoy this?” Olivia asks suddenly.
“What?”
“Golf.”
“No, I fucking hate it. If I knew this was part of my job description, I might have stayed back in Miami.”
Archie struggles to smother his snickers.
“Well, you’re doing very well,” she counters. “We’re almost even.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t brag about that if I were you. I basically picked it up this week.”
Her smirk is hard to read—is she amused or insulted? “What about fishing? This charter that you’ve booked for us today.”
“You didn’t give me much choice about coming with you, but I actually do like fishing,” I admit.
Olivia slips her sunglasses off to appraise me. “I really appreciate your honesty, Ronan. It’s refreshing. Equally refreshing is you not kissing my ass.”
“I wouldn’t insult you by trying.”
Henry and Keegan close in on their carts.
“Sure you don’t want to throw in with the boys, Olivia?” Henry eases into his cart. His eye looks worse than it did yesterday, but if anyone can carry it, it’s this condescending prick. “We’re up to two fifty now.”
Holy shit. That’s a quarter-of-a-million pot. Maybe I should actually try to play this game.
Olivia’s smile is wide as she slides her glasses back on. “Well, I just don’t throw around money like the boys do. I like to know it’s worthwhile first.” Her Texan twang seems intentionally heavy, and the undercurrent in her words is strong—Wolf Hotels isn’t getting money out of her that easily either.
Henry’s returning smile is tight. “On to the next hole. My favorite one. Ronan’s spent a lot of time there, haven’t you?” He doesn’t wait for my answer, speeding off in his cart.
“Why’d you punch him again?” Olivia muses, though I sense it’s a rhetorical question.
“You might be about to see him return the favor. Come on.” I take off after him, not wanting to miss the moment Henry rounds the bend.
The old bedsheets Sloane and I repurposed and strung up are impossible to miss, stark white banners against the green trees and clear blue sky, the black lettering legible from way farther than those small poster boards. They are, in my humble opinion, a far better “fuck you” to Henry Wolf.
And they’ve stopped him dead on the cart path.
I slow down some distance back—no need to crowd him in this moment of glory—prompting Olivia to ease up next to me.
“What does that say?” She squints. “Mermaid Beach council members and their families benefit greatly from funds donated …”
“—by Henry Wolf to County Commissioner Anderson’s foundation.” I don’t have to see the words. I’m the one who painted them on. “Anderson previously voted against Wolf Hotel Mermaid Beach plans, until change of heart.” It took a bit of digging through public records, but with Sloane’s help, we found proof of the sudden switch.
Archie whistles but otherwise stays mute.
The one next to it is equally suspect.
Back to Grace Foundation sends Mayor Wilson and son on yearly trips with funds from Henry Wolf.
“Bribery’s never a good look,” Olivia murmurs.
“No. Especially not when the county commissioner is golfing right behind us.” And based on the schedule I scanned this morning, Mayor Wilson is one team behind her.
She looks over her shoulder, as if Gayle’s literally there. “You know this commissioner?”
“I met her last night.”
Olivia is quiet for a moment, and I can see she’s piecing together bits—Henry’s black eye, his crass comment a moment ago. “And this person who lives on that property is …”
“My girlfriend.”
Henry’s caddy scrambles out of the cart, and then Henry is driving off the path and racing toward the chain-link fence.
“You may want to go save her, then.”
“She doesn’t need saving.” I peel off in my cart to follow him.
22. Sloane
“Is that him?” Frank squints at the golf cart that races across the green toward us.
“Uh-huh.” A second cart follows, Ronan behind the wheel. A third isn’t too far behind, but the driver in it has stopped and has what appears to be a small camera aimed this way. A reporter, surely. According to Ronan, the green would be crawling with them today for this media open tournament thing.
Anxiety swirls in the pit of my stomach.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to drive on the grass,” Frank muses.