Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Despite her poor life choices, he knew she loved him, even if she didn’t always love herself. Mostly, she tried. He wasn’t resentful toward her. He didn’t feel like a victim, but plenty of people around him did. He’d been born with a few strikes against him, but good things had happened to him, too, and he’d always, no matter what, felt this unexplained hopefulness about his future.
He was great with numbers, and that talent had opened doors for him. He worked for that, and he could claim it.
But his father’s heritage had also created opportunities for him and, though it wasn’t his doing, he was proud of that as well. It’d meant he’d gotten into a private school in a wealthy part of town that had labs and extracurriculars and some of the best teachers in the state. It’d meant gaining a spot crunching numbers on the football team, which he knew would look great on his college applications.
And his heritage had helped him get scholarships into the college of his choosing.
But all those things had been rescinded.
He’d sat, hollow-eyed and stricken, as his school counselor informed him that they’d made the tough decision to award the money to someone else.
“But why?” he’d croaked, swallowing before his lunch came up his throat and spewed from his mouth.
His counselor sighed, her eyes shifting away. She felt terrible, he could see that, but she also wondered if he’d really done what they were saying he’d done. And because of her doubt, she likely hadn’t fought for him. “I’m sorry, Rex. They no longer feel you’re the best representative of their foundation.”
“That’s unfair,” he’d said. “No charges were brought against me because I’m innocent.” Innocent until proven guilty. Wasn’t that supposed to be how it worked?
“I realize that. But your name . . . it’s been tainted. And they’re worried about backlash. You understand?”
He did understand, and that made it worse. He understood that a fatherless nobody from the wrong side of town had been questioned about the murder of two beautiful, wealthy women, and even though they hadn’t had the evidence needed to arrest him, the suspicion was enough.
He’d graduated two weeks before, and while he’d expected to be choosing a dorm room, instead, he was scanning people’s food, his dreams up in smoke because he’d decided to go for a fucking run.
He handed the older woman the receipt he’d just rung up, and she turned. A few items moved toward him on the conveyor belt, and he looked up to greet the next customer in line, freezing when he saw who it was. Cami Cortlandt.
His heart dropped, then rose, then took up an irregular pattern that stole his breath.
Her eyes widened and their gazes locked. It felt like mere seconds went by and also an eternity as everything around him faded away.
“Is there a problem?” the person behind her snapped with impatience. Reality rushed back in, the ding of the overhead speaker bringing him firmly into his own shoes as someone called for assistance on register three.
Their gazes broke, and Rex picked up her first item, his eyes hitting on what was just beyond it. Her hugely pregnant stomach. Oh. She fidgeted, her arms going in front of it and then dropping to the side, obviously realizing that any attempt to conceal it wasn’t going to work.
She looked to be near the end of her pregnancy. He quickly did the math, his heart constricting as he held back a wince. He set a bunch of bananas on the scale, working to remember the item number he’d had memorized for weeks. “Hi,” he finally said. What else could he do? Pretend he didn’t know her? He looked at her again as he reached for another item. She appeared as tired as the woman who couldn’t quite pay for her groceries. Tired and sad and slightly dazed. And far too young for any of that.
“Hi,” she said back, her voice as dull as her eyes.
They were both quiet for a stilted minute, and then she looked away. He could have cut the tension with a knife. He almost asked her what she was doing there, in that part of town, miles away from where she lived, and at a grocery store that wasn’t a tenth as nice as the ones near her home . . . or what had been her home. Had she moved since . . . She’d have had to, right? Who could return to the scene of a crime like that? Who could sleep under that same roof again?
Yeah, I guess . . . it could have been him. Rex Lowe.
He ran a loaf of bread over the scanning screen too quickly and then had to do it again, and then again. And as he placed the item in a bag, he realized exactly why she was there. She was hiding. Shopping in a shitty grocery store across town at ten p.m. in an effort to avoid anyone she knew.