Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Sure, no one wanted to rehash exes. That was never any fun.
But it was crucial to a relationship, FFS.
Especially if something like that happened.
She was long gone, Gabe was with me, so I should just shake it off.
Even if I knew that, I still wasn’t over it after I filled the case and the customers started coming in, therefore, I flounced irately through serving (though, not too irately that it would affect my tips).
So it was no surprise Raye and Luna gave me a wide berth and waited until the second shift joined us for the always-busy lunch sesh, they huddled without me, and Shanti was elected to make the approach.
She did, and being Shanti, she didn’t sugarcoat it.
“What’s up your ass, sis?” she asked.
Her eyes dropped to the bite mark Gabe left on my neck (hot) and back to mine.
“Gabe’s a biter,” I snapped.
The other girls were edging closer.
“You don’t like that?” Shanti queried.
“No, I love it. You were right, with all that’s him, he wrecks a woman in bed. Also against a bathroom sink.”
Her eyes lit with happy.
“And he carries me to bed over his shoulder like I weigh nothing,” I added.
“Stark family move,” Harlow muttered.
“What?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve read the books. And Luke did that too,” Harlow told me.
Interesting.
Was that kind of stuff hereditary?
Shanti brought us back on target. “Since it seems you’re getting it good, not sure what the attitude is about.”
“We had a deep chat last night,” I told her. “And I’m not going to get into specifics, because all of that is Gabe’s, but I will tell you, he had a relationship that didn’t work out for reasons beyond his control, but he did everything he could. Then, back when he was a cop, he was on duty when the call went out because there was a body by the river. It was her. She’d committed suicide. He found her.”
“Oh my God.” Harlow’s whisper was suitably horrified.
“And his girlfriend after that was a spoiled, selfish bitch. So he thanked me this morning. Thanked me just for listening to him, because she didn’t,” I finished.
“Did she know about the…earlier one?” Luna asked.
“She did,” I answered. “But she had a wicked jealous streak and didn’t want to hear about it.”
“God, what a bitch,” Jessie snapped.
“Right?” I asked.
“Um…Willow—” Raye started, her eyes aimed beyond me.
I talked over her. “Her name is Ariana. I’m going to ask Arthur to hunt her down.”
“Will—” Shanti tried to cut in.
Alas, she did not succeed.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do when I find her, but I want that info just in case I come up with something sweet to fuck her up. He brings me coffee in the morning, for shit’s sake.”
“Hey, Willow, if you’d—” Luna said swiftly.
I talked over her too.
“And he listens to me, really hears me, you know?”
I did not wait for them to say they knew.
I kept going.
“He waited up for me the other night. Neither of us get enough sleep, but he was waiting up for me. And I got home at midnight. He bought me Beckett’s Table like he was going through a drive thru. When we go out, there’s none of that, ‘What do you feel like? No, what do you feel like?’ malarky. He just makes a decision, and we eat.”
“Sis,” Shanti said urgently.
I was on a roll so her urgency was lost on me.
“I mean, how hot is that? Just decide where to eat and then eat. He’s so confident. He’s so together. It’d give me a complex, if he didn’t think I was gorgeous. Me!” I scoffed. “Gorgeous.”
“Seriously, babe—” Jessie said.
“And as hot as he is, which is off the scales, multiply that by about nine thousand, that’s how hot he is in—”
“Well, hello!” Harlow shouted very loudly, then finished with, “Luke, and I think, Mr. and Mrs. Stark, Gabe’s parents.”
I froze.
Shanti gave me an EEK! face (all-caps, in bold and italics).
“They’re not behind me, are they?” I whispered.
She pulled in both her lips.
Yep.
Somehow, for some reason, Gabe’s parents were behind me.
Since I couldn’t will myself to evaporate—a trick I was going to begin practicing immediately after this ordeal was over—slowly, I turned around and was confronted with Luke Stark wearing a half-smile.
He was standing next to a man who I was in no doubt Gabriel Stark was a product of his loins. Built body, black hair (with lots of silver), cobalt-blue eyes and all.
He was grinning.
Standing next to him was a woman with strawberry-blonde hair (more strawberry than blonde, hmm) who had to be at least in her late fifties, and she was a bona fide knockout.
Shit.
She was looking through me, her cheeks pink.
Fuck.
“Well,” Gabe’s father ended the excruciatingly awkward silence, “when Gabe called and told us he was seeing someone, and Shelby got worried he’d hooked up with another Ariana and made me pack my shit so we could drive down here to make sure our son didn’t get wound up with another woman who wasn’t worth his time, we can just say she underestimated our boy.”