Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130414 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
“Frankie!” Shortbread rolled her window down, heaving half her body out of the car. “Are you okay?”
Franklin banged her palms onto the hood, stopping the car. “Here!” She shoved a small suitcase through the window. “No way was I going to let you leave without them.”
So Dallas managed to escape this hellhole with clothes and undergarments, after all.
Shortbread hugged the case to her chest. “Are they all inside?”
Franklin nodded. “All of them. Arranged by date of publication.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
What?
“Henry Plotkin will keep you safe.” Franklin squeezed her sister’s hand. “House Dovetalon for the win.”
My bride spent our journey to the airport hugging her suitcase to her chest, eyes everywhere but on me. The woman was a certified agent of chaos. And now Oliver and Zach would see what I had to deal with.
I would never live it down.
Chapter Eight
Dallas
It seemed my future husband used his mouth exclusively to chew gum and piss me off. When he wasn’t doing the latter, he engaged in the former, content to spending the entire ride to the small airport in silence. Fine by me. Judging by the way he sneered at my suitcase full of Henry Plotkin hardbacks, he broke my cardinal rule: Never trust someone with poor taste in books.
Once we arrived, Romeo’s shiny Gulfstream G550 waited on the runway. We shuffled into a passenger cart, which drove us the short journey from the hangar to the tarmac. At the plane’s stairs, he collected my small suitcase and climbed the steps, ignoring the fact that I was barefoot.
I’d get back at him. But first, I needed to find my footing in Potomac.
I already had a plan. I knew someone there. Madison. We’d never really broken off the engagement. Not officially. This morning, my daddy had called his daddy and informed him of the chain of events (obviously omitting rather unflattering bits). The Lichts insisted they understood, promising they were still fond of me. Madison was Romeo’s enemy. We could get back at him together.
When I entered the plane, I was met by an array of men. We passed the cockpit, where two attractive men in their 30s discussed a Ravens draft pick just outside. The captain and the co-pilot. In the cabin, Oliver von Bismarck lounged on a crème sofa, drinking imported beer and watching something on his phone. His face was seraph, nearly cherubic. With a red pout and light curls twining around his ears and forehead just so. How fitting it was that the devil was masquerading as a perfect angel. While Romeo’s proposal was the biggest news to come out of the debutante ball, the rumor mill spun stories of Oliver getting into the skirts of at least three local divorcées. At the same time.
Yet another tall, handsome man in the casual rich-boy uniform of ironed khakis, a dress shirt, and a fleece jacket sat behind a compact table, holding a business conversation on his phone. He had a top-dog appeal. Of a man whose attention everyone craved when he entered a room.
“Oliver, Zach, this is my fiancée, Dallas.” Romeo made dismissive introductions, not even bothering to approach each of his friends individually. “Dallas—Oliver and Zach.”
Oliver raised his hand in a hello motion. Zach sent me a smile so impatient and impersonal you could mistake me for a maid giving him room service.
Romeo parked himself in a recliner. “Make yourself comfortable. Takeoff is in ten minutes.”
I did just that, refusing to look intimidated. It helped that there was a charcuterie board. Rows of shortbread adorned a crystal plate beside it. I pushed the tray away. For obvious reasons, I found the treat rather off-putting these days.
“Did the shortbread offend you, Dover?” Oliver gestured to an imported snack basket in front of him. “It’s all yours.”
First Shortbread. Now Dover. Lovely.
I wanted to politely offer him the finger. Then I spotted shrimp chips and abandoned my dignity quicker than the chick who’d turned Jesus Christ into a monkey in the Ecce Homo.
I’d emptied half the bag when Romeo’s sharp voice sliced through the silence. “Miss Townsend, are you feeding yourself or your clothes? There is a time and place for scarfing down a village’s worth of sustenance with your mouth open. I suggest you refrain from indulging your poor manners during your stay in Potomac.”
“Or what?” I punctuated my question with a chip, tossing it past my lips and grinding it between my molars as loud as humanly possible.
“Or you’ll find yourself in a miserable position under the scrutiny of the viperous DMV media.”
“I’ve already found myself in a miserable position. With you. The first time we met. In front of all of Chapel Falls.”
“As I recall, you enjoyed every second.” He slanted his head, producing a matte-black rectangular tin from his pocket.
“You must have drugged the shortbread.”
“I stand corrected. You do have a talent. Deliberate misinterpretations.”