Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120631 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 603(@200wpm)___ 483(@250wpm)___ 402(@300wpm)
Her shoulders instantly softened, and her head lowered. “Sorry. I thought… It doesn’t matter. I have no right to question you like that.”
“Yeah, that was weird.” He dug out his keys. “What’s going on, Wren?”
She followed him up the steps and into the house. Soren tossed his bag inside the two-story foyer and set his keys on the table by the champagne wall. Wren had seen his collection before, but she still took a second to admire it.
“Coffee?”
“I can’t.”
“Oh. Right. Water?”
“Sure.” She followed him into the kitchen, where he uncapped a glass bottle of the German stuff he had shipped in.
“Glass?”
“The bottle’s fine.”
He handed it to her and turned on his state-of-the-art espresso machine. While the machine pressure adjusted, he pulled a sausage and egg burrito from the freezer. “Want one?”
“No thanks.”
He tossed it in the microwave. “So, what brings you by?”
She climbed onto a barstool. His furniture was top-of-the-line, but that didn’t always mean it was built for comfort. She looked awkward sitting at the counter with her belly taking up all that space.
“If you want, we can sit outside. I have to put King out anyway.”
“That sounds better.” She shifted off the stool and waddled outside while he went to let King out of his room. The dog seemed to remember Wren immediately and nearly clobbered her the second he saw her.
“King! Down!”
Wren only laughed. “He’s fine. He’s just being a dog.”
He pulled the dog off her and tossed a ball into the yard that sent him loping into the distance. “Sorry.” They settled onto two lounge chairs. “So…”
She took a deep breath and hesitated, but it was clear she had something to say to him.
“Wren—”
“I know about you and Jocelyn,” she blurted.
Soren stilled, taken off guard by her outburst. “For how long?”
“A long time. Since your dad’s funeral.”
He should have known his brother would have told her. “Greyson?”
She shrugged. “We don’t keep secrets from each other.”
All that time and she didn’t say anything? His dad passed away in December. Why now? “Is this about last night?”
“Last night?”
“At the restaurant. Did Jocelyn tell you I ran into them?”
“Them?” She frowned. “Jocelyn was at my house last night.”
“I saw her and Logan outside of Salt & Ember.”
“Oh, walking home from our place.”
They were only walking home. Fuck. “Shit.”
“Soren, what did you do?”
“I might have overreacted. I was on a date.”
She immediately scowled at him.
“Don’t give me that look. I didn’t break any rules. We were coming out of the restaurant, and we ran into Joce and Logan. They were...” His fists tightened as he recalled how close they had been standing, as if they just kissed. “Why the hell was she with my brother?”
“First of all, don’t raise your voice at me.”
“Sorry.”
“Second of all, you were on a date.”
“But my brother? Of all the guys she could have gone out with—”
“Oh, my God, Soren. Will you listen to yourself? Jocelyn is not interested in Logan. He was walking her home. They both had too much wine and left their cars at my house. Jocelyn doesn’t see Logan as anything more than a friend.”
“Then why were they touching?”
“I don’t know. Why were you on a date?”
He bit back any reply and gritted his teeth. Irritated—because she had a point—he tore into his burrito, biting through the tortilla like he wanted to punish it.
Wren studied him for a long moment. “Do you care about her?”
“I barely know her.”
“You’ve known her since the third grade.”
“Oh, I thought you meant Olivia.”
“Do you care about Olivia?”
“I… I don’t know. It’s early, Wren. And I haven’t had coffee.”
“It’s not a hard question, Soren.”
“On paper, Olivia’s the full package. She knows how my world works.”
“And Jocelyn doesn’t?”
“It’s not the same. Olivia knows how to play the game. She was bred to marry a successful man.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “And an egotistical one, apparently.”
“I’m just saying, Jocelyn’s…unfiltered. She says whatever she feels and bulldozes over anyone who stands in her way.”
“So? That’s why she’s successful. Everything she has, she provided for herself.”
“Exactly. Joce likes her independence and doesn’t want anything serious.”
“What if she did?”
He paused, taken off guard by the question. “Did she say something to you?”
“No, but I know my friend. Jocelyn isn’t as tough as everyone thinks she is. Strong, yes—incredibly so. I’d trust her with my life. But strong doesn’t mean unbreakable, and people tend to forget that.”
“Look, I would never purposely hurt Jocelyn. I…care about her. More than I want to admit. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s her and I’m me. We’d end up killing each other.”
“Does it make it easier to tell yourself that?”
“It’s true.”
“People who hate each other don’t sleep together.”
He looked away and mumbled. “Guess you never had a good hate fuck.” When she didn’t respond, he sighed. “Look, what do you want me to say, Wren? Sex and arguing are the only ways Jocelyn and I communicate. Even after all these months, she makes me fucking work for it. And I’m not the one chasing her out when it’s over. She’s always the first to pull away.”