Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 479(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 479(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
They’d always be who they were.
And they weren’t people she needed in her life.
“You’re right. My real family are the people who are always there for me. Who would drop everything to help me.”
He cleaned her face and held the tissue to her nose. “Blow.”
She blew her nose, groaning in pain because that hurt. Duke wiped her nose, which was a bit gross. Then he placed the tissue aside before lightly grabbing hold of her chin and tilting her face up.
“You’re amazing, Sunny. So kind and caring and sweet. It’s their loss, not having someone as special as you in their lives.”
He was so sweet.
“What should we do? Not send them the money?”
“No, I think we should send it. But I’m going to make it clear that’s it. That we’re not helping them with anything else. And that they’re not to call you unless they suddenly want to become decent parents.”
“All right. Let’s do that. Thank you, Duke. For being my family. For loving me.”
“You don’t ever have to thank me for that.”
6
Four days before the wedding . . .
Son-of-a-freaking-peach!
What was going on?
Like you don’t know what’s going on. Don’t kid yourself.
Sunny groaned as she sat at the dining table, staring at the email on her laptop.
“Something wrong, baby girl?” Duke walked over, putting his hand on the back of her neck.
She was feeling a lot better after her incident with the bike. There was still a bit of bruising on her back, but she’d gone back to work today.
Of course, she’d wanted to go back to work last week, but Duke was nothing if not protective. He hadn’t given her the punishments she was owed yet, because he wanted all of the bruising to fade.
Unfortunately, she’d managed to earn herself two more punishments as well.
She really didn’t want to tell him about this, but she had to.
With a sigh, she gestured toward the email on her screen.
“I emailed the equipment rental people, the caterers, and the florist last night about paying the balance of what we owe. I thought that I would have heard from them by now. But, well, something weird has happened.”
Duke sat on the chair next to hers, his gaze narrowing. “What kind of weird?”
She bit her lip, and he reached over to free it from her teeth. “It’s all been paid for.”
They’d transferred money out of their emergency fund to send to her parents. Serenity had managed to find a friend with a bank account. Duke had a chat with her, which had ended with him hanging up on her.
Serenity could be hard on a person’s patience.
But Sunny now felt like a boulder was off her shoulders. Sure, it made her sad to think about not having her parents at her wedding. But it was more the idea of her parents than the reality of them that she’d mourned.
Her parents would still have to fix their RV, but as Duke had told Serenity bluntly, they could damn well get a job and do that themselves.
“What do you mean it’s all been paid for?” he asked in a low voice.
She swallowed heavily. And here came the tricky part.
“I spoke to the florist today during my lunch break. And she said an elderly man came in to pay for the balance. I thought maybe it was a random act of kindness. Like how someone might buy you a cup of coffee or pay for your groceries?”
“But it wasn’t?”
“Ah, doesn’t seem so. I just heard back from the caterers and the same thing happened.”
Duke stood so suddenly that his chair fell over backward. Hatter, who had been sitting on her feet, started barking excitedly.
“Calm, dog,” Duke ordered. He leaned his hands on the table, his head dropping forward as he took some deep breaths. “That son of a bitch!”
Uh-oh.
Things were bad if Duke was swearing.
“I’m sure he was just trying to do something nice for us,” she offered. “Think of it like a wedding present.”
“Sunny,” Duke groaned. He straightened and started pacing back and forth. “A wedding present is towels or an air fryer. Not to pay for half the damn wedding.”
She chewed her lip, watching him worriedly. She knew that this was a real sore point for him.
“We don’t know that it was the Fox,” she offered. “Could be a long-lost uncle I don’t know about. I mean, Serenity and Phoenix never took me to any family reunions. I could have a generous uncle.”
“Great, so now you have two mysterious men going around and paying for things for you?”
She winced. “When you put it like that, it sounds bad. I’m sorry, Duke.”
Duke stilled and ran his hand over face. He picked up the chair and sat before lifting her onto his lap. “Don’t say sorry, Little Rebel. None of this is your fault.”
“It feels like it is.” She twisted her fingers together in her lap.