Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87152 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
And that’s why I know he’s just as confused as I am when a head full of blonde curls comes bobbing our way. “There you are. Assholes.” There’s the face I’ve been hoping to see, the one I was living for all weekend long. She’s flushed and snarling, and her eyes burn as they bounce back-and-forth between us. “Why did you have to do it? Why? When is it going to be enough?”
“What are you talking about?” Easton looks at me, and all I can do is shrug.
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” Her eyes fill with tears and her chin trembles, and it damn near takes my legs out from under me. She is so hurt, and I don’t know why.
Until she blurts it out. “My pearls. I opened my jewelry box this morning, and they were gone. It’s not bad enough you broke the necklace? You had to steal the pearls, too? When are you going to stop?” The whimper she releases sends a sick shiver down my spine.
“Would you let us—”
“What?” she snaps, cutting Easton off. “Are you going to give me all the reasons why you had to do it? Why I deserve it? Just when I think we’re past all that shit, you go and pull something like this!”
We’re going to have an audience pretty soon. As it is, a handful of people glance our way, some of them smirking as they observe Emma working herself up. Pretty soon they’re going to stop to watch. I don’t feel like being anybody else’s entertainment today.
“We were going to surprise you.” This isn’t how we wanted to do the big reveal or whatever, but she’s kind of forcing my hand. “It’s supposed to be a present.”
Her chest is heaving as she glares up at me. I can almost hear her teeth grinding. “A present?” she grits out.
Fuck it. “Yeah, this isn’t the way we wanted to tell you, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. You can log in later and get whatever assignments you missed, right?”
Did she mean to take a step back? Her forehead crinkles before she asks, “What? Why would you ask that?”
“Because there is an errand we were going to run later, but if you come with us, we’ll run it now.” The necklace was supposed to be ready for pick up today, anyway. We don’t need to wait until later. And now that she’s losing her shit, I’m kind of in a hurry to see her figure out how wrong she is. I don’t want to wait another minute longer than I have to.
“So what? You’re just going to skip class to run an errand?” Her mouth pulls downward at the corners.
“Yeah. And I think you’re going to be happy about it.” I mean, I hope she is. This whole thing would be a waste if she’s not happy with what we did.
She’s still so untrusting. Eyeing us warily, though at least it doesn’t seem like she’s on the verge of tears anymore. “Do I even have a choice?”
“I promise. Everything will make sense once we get there.” The madder she gets, the more I can’t wait to show her what we did. Maybe now she won’t immediately jump to the worst possible conclusion.
I don’t care that we’re missing class. I mean, not that I would’ve cared all that much in the first place, but now there’s nothing I would rather do than take her to the jewelers. She digs her feet in a little at first, because of course she has to do that. Making it harder than it has to be to pull her toward the truck. Like we’re kidnapping her or some shit.
She doesn’t drop the attitude until I park across the street from the store, but she’s still doubtful. “What are we doing here?” Her teeth scrape her lip as she looks around before climbing down onto the sidewalk.
“Come and see.” I’m way too excited as I take her by the hand and lead her across the street. My heart’s pounding, and my reflection in the big front window of the jewelers reveals a huge smile. Borderline cheesy.
But once she puts it together when the store’s owner opens a velvet box to reveal her new necklace, I don’t feel so cheesy. “Oh, my god,” she whispers with her hands crossed over her chest. “Am I dreaming?”
Easton’s smile is as wide as mine. “We told you, didn’t we? It was supposed to be a surprise.”
“But…” Her eyelashes are fluttering when she looks up from the necklace. “I didn’t find all of them. There are too many on the strand.”
“We asked for matching pearls to be added.” Since she hasn’t taken the necklace out of the box, I do it for her, then unclasp it. “Turn around.”