Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106806 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
“I already have a housekeeper.” His gaze skips down my body for the first time since I stepped into the bathroom. “Nice panties.”
He steps around me and out of the bathroom, and I’m left trying to put out the fire in my cheeks.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SAVVY
We’re slammed at The Naked Bean from the moment I arrive for my shift until the moment we lock up at the end of the night. Maybe if it had been a slow night, I would’ve recognized the smirks on my coworkers’ faces hours ago, but I was too busy serving lattes and blending frappes to worry too much about it.
Once the doors are locked, though, their snickers are impossible to miss, and annoyance boils in my blood.
Julie steps up to my side and gives me a sympathetic smile. “They’re just jealous.” She looks over her shoulder. Across the room, the two other baristas are laughing behind the counter. “It doesn’t matter what they think.”
My frown deepens. “Think about what?”
Julie unties her apron and hangs it on the wall. “About Oliver and everything,” she says, not looking at me.
“They know about Oliver?”
She coughs out a laugh. “Everyone knows about Oliver.” She bites her bottom lip and presses her hand to the center of her chest. “That man is so fine. If I had a few hours alone with him . . .”
“I’m sorry to interrupt whatever fantasy is happening in your mind right now, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She winces. “Chuck has pretty much told everyone.”
That he threw the fight? I almost say the words but catch myself just in time. I might not like my ex very much right now, but I’m not vindictive enough to let everyone know he plays dirty.
The girls laugh again. Louder this time.
I finally can’t take it anymore, so I snap my head to them and glare. “What are you staring at?”
One girl hides her laughter behind her hand and the other smirks. “Bunch of nothing,” the first says.
I roll my eyes and turn back to sweeping the lobby.
“Just not every day you get to see a whore in the wild,” the smirking one says.
That’s it. “What did you just call me?” I carefully set my broom against the wall before skulking toward them. I’ve had enough of their snickering and whispering, and now the name calling?
“I called you a whore,” she says, all wide-eyed innocence.
“Cheyenne,” her friend says. “That’s enough.”
“No, no,” I say. “I’d love to hear more of what Cheyenne has to say.” One thing I learned about bullies while growing up is that very few of them have the backbone to stand behind their taunts. “Why am I a whore?”
She rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Because that’s what we call women who’ve been bought and paid for.”
What the—
“And everyone knows that Oliver bought you to pay off your brother’s gambling debts. And you let him. And now you’re fucking him. Ipso facto, you are a whore.”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. He didn’t . . .” Each word out of my mouth gets softer and weaker as her words set in.
He bought me. Is that what he thinks? Is that what he’s telling people?
I look to Julie, and she shakes her head and says softly, “Chuck’s telling everyone that you sold yourself to Oliver to pay your brother’s debt.”
I blink. Oliver stepped in. He helped me.
Stay as long as you want. We’ll talk tonight about how you can repay me.
“No. He just called in a favor to give Nathan more time.”
“Fifty grand? How did you figure your brother would ever get that kind of money?” Julie’s smile is full of pity. “It’s okay. No one blames you. They really would’ve killed your brother if you hadn’t made the deal with Oliver.”
“I didn’t . . .”
She squeezes my wrist gently. “It doesn’t matter what those bitches think. We all do what we have to in order to protect the people we love.”
“Oliver doesn’t love me, though. He barely knows me.” Which means . . . he really did buy me. And now everyone knows it.
Anger surges through me when Oliver walks through the door—no, struts through the door. He’s cocky and full of authority. A man who knows what he wants and gets it.
And now he thinks he bought you.
Fuck him for being so sexy by wearing that so well.
I spring off the couch and stride toward him.
Oliver drops his keys on the counter and turns to me. “Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
“You bought me?” And God, why does that hurt? It makes way more sense than what I thought happened. That he helped. That he cared. “And you told them you bought me?”
His brows jump up. “What are you—”
Dropping to my knees, I look up at him through my lashes as I release the button on his jeans. I slowly drag down the zipper, never letting my eyes stray from his.