Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“A stay at the Bellagio for two nights,” Annie said with a glint in her eye. “I do like to gamble.”
“You’re terrible at gambling,” Jordan said with a laugh.
“You’re not supposed to be good at it!” Annie insisted as she scribbled Jordan’s name on the paper.
He sighed heavily. “You’re paying for that.”
“No, I’m not,” she said as she walked to the next item.
“Get married, they said. It’ll be great, they said,” Jordan said under his breath.
Annie looked back at him, and he simped for her. The softie. He’d definitely pay for that Vegas trip if he won.
“What are you wanting to win?” Julian asked Whitt as Jordan and Annie walked off to say hi to her best friend and the youngest Wright cousin, Sutton, and her husband, David.
“Whatever Eve wants.”
They all turned to look at me.
“Oh, I don’t need anything.”
“What about this?” Jennifer asked. “You like the gym, right?”
I looked down at what she’d suggested and found a year membership to the nicest gym in town, plus personal training. My eyes rounded. That would be insane. I’d hit all my personal bests if I had a year of personal training. I’d used all of my personal training special that I’d gotten when I first signed up at my gym, and there was only so much YouTube videos could train a person on.
“This looks amazing,” I said in awe.
The starting bid was already over a thousand dollars though. Even if I had that handy, I wouldn’t be spending it on something I could normally pay monthly. That was a pipe dream.
Whitt scooted me out of the way and wrote his name on the paper.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“I could use a personal trainer.”
He smirked at me, as if asking me to call him a liar. Well, I wouldn’t back down.
“That’d better not be for me.”
Jennifer put her hand on mine with a shake of her head. “That’s a lost cause. You’ll learn. These Wright boys don’t listen.”
I wanted to argue anyway. I definitely intended to scribble his name out, but then Whitt took my hand and pulled me along.
“You’re a menace,” I grumbled.
“What? It goes to a good cause. I was intending to buy something either way. Why can’t it be for you?”
“You already bought me these shoes,” I said, pointing at my feet.
“And then?” He laughed at my irritated expression and continued walking.
There were some other extravagant auction items, like season tickets to the Broadway series at The Buddy Holly Performing Arts Center with a meet and greet with the cast of Lion King after the show, Louis Vuitton luggage, and a helicopter ride around the Grand Canyon. It was interspersed with some more normal auction items—a spa package, seats at a Texas Tech home football game, and gift certificates for local restaurants.
We were nearly to the end when I saw a business logo on the top of a page that I hadn’t been expecting—Sinclair Realty. My stomach felt stuck in my throat as I saw that Arnold Sinclair had donated a weekend at his ski chalet at the bougie resort, Holliday Ski, in New Mexico, plus mountain passes and ski rental. The chalet that I had absolutely spent a weekend in last year before shit hit the fan with Arnold.
Fuck.
Did that mean he was here? Surely, he wouldn’t offer something this extra and not be here to let everyone know he’d done it.
“We should go,” I said without thinking.
“Go?” Whitt asked in confusion.
And then I saw it.
Not Arnold.
Charlotte.
And she’d seen me a mile off. Now, our eyes met in the six feet that separated us.
I’d never met the woman. Arnold’s wife. She was gorgeous. A petite woman with straight blonde hair and blue eyes. She was thin and toned, like the Pure Barre moms I saw come into the gym sometimes. She had some wrinkles. Enough to say that she’d lived a good life, smiled a lot. She should have been treasured, a woman like that.
When we’d met, I’d had no idea he was still married. He insisted that they were separated and the divorce was in the works. To be honest, I didn’t ask too many questions. That was stupid of me. I wasn’t entirely innocent in all of it, but I’d ended it as soon as I’d discovered that he was a fucking liar. I never told his wife.
But someone had.
Because her eyes were red-rimmed and sad. Like she might burst into tears at any moment.
I wondered what she thought of me.
I knew what she thought of me.
I wished that I could tell her I wasn’t who she thought I was. That I regretted dismantling her life. That I thought she deserved better.
But I didn’t get to say any of that before Arnold stepped into my line of sight, breaking my eye contact with Charlotte Sinclair.
“What are you doing here?” Arnold hissed. He reached out and grasped my wrist—hard. “You need to go. You don’t belong in a place like this.”