Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 145155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
When I wake up, he is gone.
Joshua
The seagull’s cry wakes me from my daydream. Hot sun, beaming down onto my back. My hands drift in the water underneath my surfboard. This is why I love Australia. My morning ritual since being here: 6:00 a.m. surf. I’ve missed my wave but I’m too relaxed to care. Being out here and being with her are the only two things that ground me and bring me back to reality. I feel like shit and my head is pounding. Why in the hell did I drink so much? The seagulls go wild again as I look to the beach and my stomach drops. Fucking bodyguards. Two of the bastards. Ben will be back tomorrow, thank god. I can’t stand having these guys I don’t know around me. At least when Ben is here, I just feel like I’m hanging out with a mate. I wish to god they would just catch him so I can have my fucking life back. I feel like a cockroach in a jar, trapped and isolated. Unknown to her, Natasha has been guarded. I smile at the thought of her going off like a firecracker. She’d see it as an invasion of privacy. I catch my last wave in and walk up the beach, shaking the water from my head.
“Let’s go.” I gesture to the men and I walk toward home.
Brad, one of the Australian bodyguards, laughs. “Your friend is fuming.”
“Yeah, I thought he would be.” I smile at the two men with me and shake my head. Adrian is a total prick when he’s angry with me. Nobody else is game—he’s got guts; I will give him that. He, however, takes pleasure in it, I’m sure. I walk in the front door to find Adrian sitting at my kitchen bench reading the newspaper. He looks up and then back at his paper, deadpan.
I sigh. “Out with it. He shakes his head and silently sips his coffee. “Listen, if you came to my house to give me the silent treatment don’t bother. Do it from your house. I’m not in the fucking mood.”
He holds his hand up. “Do not insult my intelligence, Joshua.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re being a bit melodramatic don’t you think?”
“Melodramatic,” he shrieks. “You ordered the bodyguards and me out of the pub so you could fight like a frat boy, Josh. Last time I looked you were the CEO of a billion-dollar company. Why in the hell did you get so drunk?”
I shrug as I grab the orange juice from the fridge and drink it from the bottle.
“God, get a glass you behemoth.”
“It’s my house, get a muzzle. You’re hurting my ears.” He narrows his eyes at me. I turn my back to him and make a protein shake, my first of three today.
“What if you had fought that guy and he slapped another assault charge on you? What then, huh?”
I frown and nod as I rub my eyes. “Do you reckon he slept with her?” I ask.
“Oh fuck, not this again. You said she told you she had never been with him.”
“Yeah, well why would he go to such lengths if he had never slept with her?”
“Josh, you’re going fucking crazy.”
“Maybe.” I crack an egg into my shake. “Anyway, how did Tash know where we were last night? Maybe she was meeting him there and I crashed the party.”
Adrian puts his hands on his hips. “You’re pathetic, you know that don’t you?”
“Shut up.” I wince as my brain once again hits the sides of my skull.
“Natasha came because I rang her.”
“What? Why in the fuck would you do that?”
“Because you were acting totally crazy.”
“What if I was in a fight…and she saw? Don’t you remember her reaction when she saw me kickboxing?”
“It was a cage fight, you animal, and I totally support her. That’s not a sport, it’s barbaric.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes. “Go home, you’re hurting my brain.”
“I am going home actually.” He turns and walks toward the door. “I’m having brunch with Natasha.”
Huh, what the fuck. I jump off the stool and follow him outside. “What did you just say?”
“I said—” he wobbles his stupid head to accentuate his point, “—I’m having brunch with Natasha.”
“No, you’re fucking not!”
“Oh yes, I fucking am. Just because you won’t take her for coffee doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“You know why I don’t take her for coffee.”
“No, I don’t, I don’t get you at all. You’re obsessed with her, won’t stop talking about her, but you won’t let yourself spend any time with her.”
“Because I can’t, you know that.”
“Why can’t you?”
“It’s fucking incest, Adrian. It’s wrong. This is the kind of shit toothless rednecks who live in the damn swamp do, not millionaires and psychologists. It’s unheard of. And besides, it is only going to make it harder when I leave, for her I mean.”