Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
I wasn’t in any hurry to answer the phone and only did it so that she didn’t wake up from the ringing. She’d passed out after her gymnastics on my dick which meant she was tired. Then again, my baby does like to sleep.
I didn’t recognize the number, but that’s nothing new. Still, I answered because my gut told me to. “Hey, kid, the guys are going to be there in about an hour; you and your woman need to be ready.”
“Lyon?” It’s so like him to expect me to recognize his voice after such a short acquaintance.
“That’s me.”
“I don’t understand; where are they taking us?”
“You’ll see when you get there. I’m out.” He hung up before giving me anything more, and I just shook my head because what else am I gonna do? Isn’t it odd that I trust him more than people I’ve known for ages?
Speaking of which, I know I need to face Janie at some point in time, something I am not looking forward to, but I would be the worst kind of coward if I didn’t. I’d already seen the last of Scott, I hope since the Saunders group was dealing with nullifying my contract with him and his company.
Mary, I didn’t need to see since I have no real dealings with her except for her and her daughters always being around because of my ex, and as for Matt, I’d been shunning him ever since the news came out that he was a damn pedophile. I haven’t really let myself think too much about the fact that he was the person I’d chosen to be my spiritual advisor and how that showed what a horrible judge of character I’d been in the past.
As for my ex-father-in-law, I doubt he’d have the guts to face me, and I never really had much dealings with his wife, so there was no need for me to talk to her now. My circle had become very small since Elena, and I had broken up, and it was only now, as I stood next to the bed towel drying my hair as I looked at her sleeping face, that I realized how much she had brought to my life.
Because she was in the business long before I was, she’d known way more people, but funnily enough, those weren’t the people she liked to surround herself with. While I was still starry-eyed, wanting to be involved in any and everything that would keep me in the spotlight and as relevant as I needed to be to remain a success, she’d been quite the opposite.
The people she’d introduced me to were real. They were people who genuinely loved and wanted the best for her, and she’d done her best to share that with me while I stupidly pushed back. It was one of the things we fought about most often. I just couldn’t see why she didn’t want me to have the life everyone else in my position was having.
A life of partying to the wee hours, hanging out with the rich and famous and doing things I could only imagine when I first started dreaming about success. So what if that life had a dark underbelly, it was part of the game, wasn’t it, and everyone who wanted to make it had to play their part, or so I believed.
It’s also one of the reasons her mother hated me. She saw me as trying to corrupt her daughter by introducing her back into that life, a life she had come to suspect over time, which I could only now appreciate.
Now I see what she was trying so hard to do for me, and knowing that, the love I feel for her burned like a raging fire in my chest. It hit me as I stood there that, as a human being without all the trappings of fame and wealth, I had really lucked out. Not once, but twice. And it’s for this reason that I promised myself and her as I stood there that I would never let anything come between us again.
*Elena*
I was having the best dream when he woke me up, and seeing his face leaning over mine was like a continuation of that dream. I raised my hand to touch his cheek in wonder as sleep still clouded my eyes. “Ryder!” He covered my hand with his and turned it from his cheek to his lips, placing a kiss in my palm and made me smile.
“I fell asleep.” I was just a little embarrassed about the things that I’d done and trying my best not to show it. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I love you more than life. I’m so sorry, baby, for everything.”
I’d lost count of how often he’d apologized, and as much as I’d imagined making him beg in the past, or the hell I would put him through if I ever got the chance, I find that now that he’s here and we’ve put the worst behind us, I don’t want that for him. “I know, you’ve told me. You don’t have to keep apologizing. I forgive you.”