Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Every bride dreams of her wedding day.
Today was supposed to be that day for me, except it’s not me marrying my college sweetheart.
My best friend is doing that. Or, well, my ex–best friend.
Instead, I’m over a thousand miles away, riding the subway in a city where lost people come to dream.
Me—I’m just hoping to distract myself from my heartbreak.
That is, until I met Jake Worthing.
Grumpy.
Hot.
A total jerk.
Did I mention hot?
Also, extremely presumptuous.
Just because I look like I’m a thought away from a total meltdown does not mean I need an ambulance.
He had the audacity to ask if I needed medical treatment.
Well, good riddance to him.
I don’t ever have to see him again.
Except, well, I do when I’m taken to the police station for a total misunderstanding.
He walks in and…gah. He’s the same that I remember from our first meeting.
Brooding. Still gorgeous. (The universe is not fair sometimes.)
He’s stirring up emotions that I didn’t know were still inside of me.
Then someone tries to shoot him and I’m a witness, and…er, how is it that I’m the one being kidnapped?
And by Jake?
Now I’m heated for a whole different reason.
If I get myself out of this captive situation, I’m going to reign down my own destruction starting with Jake Worthing.
I just have to survive first and, also, not get my heart broken. Again.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter One
Sawyer
I was riding the subway in New York City for the first time, and a part of me was hoping the passengers around me would start singing The Lion King’s “Circle of Life.”
Logically, I’m sure that rarely happened, but if there was a chance? I was down for it.
Hear me, Universe. Broadway rendition of any song. I’m not picky.
I waited, looking around. There were some people passed out. A bunch of college students. Other workers. I leaned back, eyeing a group of athletic-looking people. They looked like they could be dancers. Broadway dancers?
I was hoping for it, but then the next stop happened and they got off.
Okay. I deflated.
Maybe not.
The last guy I was holding out for was scowling to himself and was fixated on his phone. He had the build. Broad shoulders. He wasn’t slim, or he didn’t seem like it as he was sitting, but he had the looks. And by that I meant that he was hot. Super hot. He was solidly built. There was no excess weight on him. All muscle. Fierce eyes. A clenched jawline. Leather jacket, black Henley, and jeans. Dark hair that was cut short on the sides and left with enough to grab a hold of on top.
He looked as if he could handle himself in a fight, and in my mind, that meant he was made for Broadway.
His energy was all off, though. He seemed all growly, not as though he was ready to burst into song. Perhaps he was the Beast? Or no . . . Gaston?
No. Gaston didn’t seem to fit either. Total Beast.
His phone buzzed and he answered it, turning away. I couldn’t make out his words, but his very gravelly and pissed-off clipped tones were now about to segue into the beginning of “Seasons of Love.”
I was waiting.
Expecting.
Sigh.
It wasn’t going to happen.
My phone buzzed at that moment, too, and I checked my text.
Mom: Hi honey! How is New York? Are you safe? Did you see the Wall Street bull yet? I know you were so excited to check it out.
My mom was under the impression I was here as a tourist. Which I was. I had an entire tourist checklist of things to do: See a Broadway show, go to a museum, maybe go nuts and eat at some fancy restaurant that only New York City seemed to have. I wanted to go to Ellis Island, tour the Statue of Liberty, find out what this Canal Street was all about. Then there was Times Square, though I was a bit iffy on this naked cowboy character.
The other reason I was here in New York and not back home was because of just that, I would not be back home. So since I was avoiding anything and everything that reminded me of Montana, I was going to skip seeing this cowboy person, naked or not. We had enough cowboys back home.
Another item I wanted to check off my list was to meet my cousin. I’d met his sisters a few times. They lived a few hours away, but not Graham. That was going to change on this trip. My mom was close to two of my aunts, but there was a rift between the three of them and Graham’s mom. I’d asked my mom what the issue was, but she never gave me a great answer. She liked to deflect. So while I was here, I was taking things into my own hands.
I’d cyberstalked Graham and he looked awesome. He was adopted, he and his two sisters. He was an architect. He had a husband. He liked to travel. I could get so many great tips on being the ultimate tourist from him.
I was hoping when I met Graham, and when he fell in awesome cousin love with me, that we could conspire on how to bring the sisters together.
That was the secret mission. That, and the whole “not being at home” because this was also the week that I was supposed to be getting married.
But I wasn’t, because Beck dumped me.
Beck, the same guy that I’d been with since college.
The same guy that I helped put through chiropractic school.
The same guy that wanted me to quit the receptionist job I loved to work for him, which I did.
The same guy that I gave almost two decades of my life. We’d been engaged for the last two years, but then he decided to fill me in on a simple thing where he’d been cheating on me for the last three years. And that they were having a child.
He and Manda.
And that person he was cheating on me with—Manda—was my best friend from college.
I was about to lose it. This was what happened when I let myself ruminate.
There were thoughts.
And feelings.
And anger. Lots and lots of anger.
I couldn’t let myself think about it, because if I did, then I was going to lose my mind.