Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Tonight will be all about puppy love, and that will be good for me.
***
It’s already on the backside of lunch when Allie finally ends her silence and pings my phone. He’s all yours, her message begins before she adds, I have a meeting I have to get to. I think I softened him up. My brows dip. Okay, then. That doesn’t sound positive. My brother is going to make his own career more difficult than it has to be. Or he would, if I’d let him.
I will not.
Considering the Zoom meeting with the studio is in a few hours, I officially have a fire lit under me, plus my stomach is growling. I need food. I check the weather app and decide it’s warm outside, and unworthy of a jacket. Snatching up my bag, I head for the door then the lobby, thankful to pass through the offices without a Tyler encounter. Not that Tyler spends a lot of time roaming the building and intimidating people, but it happens. It happened this morning.
On that note, how is this only Tuesday?
I exit the building into the hustle and bustle of a busy downtown Nashville sidewalk.
The wind is high, the air colder than the temperature promised by the weather app, but it’s a welcome chill to the heat Tyler and I have been throwing in that building. I need this escape, if only for my lunch hour. Besides, the walk is short anyway. It’s only two blocks, and in a quick few minutes, I’ve already arrived at the bakery side of the bookstore. I enter the cozy spot to chimes on the door, and my gaze lifts above the cute wooden tables in the center of the room, to my brother’s favorite corner nook. Sure enough, he’s there, his head down, his fingers banging away at his keyboard, his hair a finger-mussed mess. That’s my brother, the handsome, always mussed-up famous writer.
I’m proud of his success.
I just wish he wouldn’t be quite as stubborn on some things.
I start the short walk to greet him and note the full cup of coffee and sandwich sitting across from him, which does not seem a good sign. Not if it means Allie spent her time here trying to talk sense into him rather than eating and drinking.
Convincing Dash to do a show starring him, not an actor, is going to be a mammoth undertaking, and I need food and a bathroom before taking on that beast. Based on the present state of my body, it seems I haven’t actually done either of those things all morning. I arrive at Dash’s table and he eyes me with a smirk on his lips. “Why am I not surprised to see you?”
“We both know why, stubborn boy. But I have to pee and get food. It’s been a hell of a week, but the puppy makes it better and the nanny is amazing.”
“Bella—”
I hold up a finger. “I really have to pee and order food.” With that, I rotate on my heel and march away.
I eye the counter and find someone I don’t know at the register, darn it. Otherwise, my order would be placed on arrival. That’s how regular I am here.
A group of people step to the counter just before me, and while I’d prefer to wait until the line dies down, I have no choice but to eat in a fairly immediate fashion. I’ll kill my brother if I don’t get food before we fight and I can feel a fight coming over us. It’s a sibling thing. We know these things. But as I stand in the same spot, unmoving, it’s clear the six-deep line has a lot of talking happening and no ordering. With that sign, I decide a bathroom break is necessary anyway. I head to the little cutout nook where they’re located and cut right to the ladies’ room hurrying through the necessities. With a ham and cheese croissant and a cupcake on my mind, I pray the line is now nonexistent.
With a forceful push of the door, I exit the bathroom and come face to face with a man exiting the men’s room, which is placed a little too close for comfort. Especially considering that man is Tyler.
And why does he smell good and look better? Damn him.
Damn him so much.
My heart leaps and adrenaline surges through my veins. “What are you doing here?” I demand.
“I thought you might need back-up to deal with Dash.”
“Are you serious? You didn’t trust me to handle my own brother?” I shake my head and then lean in closer, a hiss in my tone as I challenge, “And yet you wanted me to run an entirely new division?”
“First of all, I texted you a warning that I was headed over here just in case you were here. Just in case you wanted me to stay away. You didn’t reply. And as for the new division I offered you, you and I are exactly what this company needs, Bella.”